Dear agausling,
Delivery Partners is a scam.
I assume that the website address you provided is actually
"www.d-partners.org". So I made that website the starting point of my
research.
The first thing I did was to examine that website carefully. I made
several observations that are more than only suspicious:
- They call themselves "Delivery Partners Inc" which indicates that
they are a US-based company. But the only telephone and fax numbers
they provide are British. However, if they were a British company,
they would not be "Inc.", but "Ltd." And they can't be a British
company, because the only "Delivery Partners Ltd." registerd in the UK
is a freight transport business in Torquay.
- Their "Terms of Use" are not theirs at all. The company mentioned in
that text is called "Mobile-Spedition", allegedly under the laws of
the State of New York. In fact, these Terms of Use were simply taken
from another (now defunct) scam escrow website:
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:ZG16pa-Ui_IJ:mobile-spedition.com/index.php-show%3Dterms.htm
- The same mistake happened to them a second time: Their "Privacy
Policy" text is about a company named "Secure Escrow", while "Delivery
Partners" is not mentioned at all. That is so because they took the
Privacy Policy from yet another now-defunct fraudulent escrow website.
The fact that they did not even bother to change the wrong company
names in both cases shows how sloppily these fraudsters work.
- The only payment methods they accept are Wire Transfer, MoneyGram
and Western Union. This is typical for fraudsters: Only scammers
insist on these methods of payment because the victims can never find
out who actually received the money, and it is not possible to call
the money back. Real companies offer better payment options.
- It remains completely unclear under what country's laws this alleged
company works, although that would be vital information. That is so,
of course, because the company does not exist at all.
I also checked the ownership record of their Web domain,
"d-partners.org". Reputedly, it was registered by one Michael Bishop,
147 Millham Street in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Actually, that
address belongs to a musical instruments store.
While it makes no sense for an international company to register their
domain through some individual in a small town in Massachusetts, it is
the typical behavior of scammers: They use just any address to
register the domain for their fake business. They do so to avoid being
tracked by their victims. A real, reputable company would not do that.
Besides, the domain was registerd only very recently, on 6 March 2006,
and it will already expire on 6 March 2007. Again, this is not what a
reputable company would do. But scammers normally register such
"disposable" domains that are simply abandoned once they are not of
use any longer.
"Delivery Partners" is clearly a scam. I recommend not to do any
business with them.
Regards,
Scriptor
Sources:
Database of registered Companies in the United Kingdom
http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/WebCHeck/fastrack/
Allwhois Domain Database
http://www.allwhois.com/cgi-bin/allwhois.cgi
Switchboard Telephone Directory
http://www.switchboard.com/ |
