StephensOpticalLenses
Complaint 188439 Details

I have the same issue as this: I received the same email about lenses from a "company" called Stephens Optical Lenses. I sold two lenses for this guy for a sum total of $3428.00. The two "buyers" had a feedback of zero and signed up the same day as the purchase (shame on me for not listening to the alarm bell then. I was supposed to send my "client" his money by Liberty Reserve which is supposed to be much less expensive than Paypal, but I could not register with them. I asked my client what to do and he said I should wire transfer the money to him using a name HAITAO DENG and associated account numbers. I transferred the funds from my Paypal account minus my 20% commission and was all set to wire the money when the thought occurred to me that I did not have "Stephen's" last name. I did some Google searches (ones I should have done earlier) and found out that his web site was bogus with a bogus address and phone number. I then tried to contact both "buyers" of the lenses but one phone number was disconnected and the other had a voice mail for a different name than the "ship to" person. Further research yielded a lot more including a report in scambook.com about this scammer. What he does is he sends a box of flowers to the address and the name on the ebay account is different than the people who actually live at the address. The lens was not shipped with a signature confirmation so he is able to make a chargeback claim on his phoney PayPal account stating that the item was never received and the ebay seller then has their account deducted for the full amount of the cost of the lenses they sold. Most likely this involves stolen credit card numbers and ID theft as well. I believe there is an inherent danger in the use of wire transfers. I have called ebay and alerted them to this situation and I have called Paypal and alerted them also. I called the F.B.I. and received a call back from them. I have also filed a complaint on IC3. I currently have this scammer's money and I want to get rid of it, but there is no way I am going to wire anything. My opinion is that the seller, and the two buyers are all the same person, so perhaps a full refund to both fake buyers is the answer. I am not getting much helpful advice from anyone regarding what to do, so I am still in a do nothing mode for the present.