Warning about DVD scammers

Hi,

Last year I received an email from a "direct mail marketing company with a huge email list" and they wanted to review my DVDs. I took the bait and sent them 1 of each of my DVDs. Then they disappeared.

Well, they're back. A friend just forwarded me this email, which is almost identical to the one last year, but the company is different.

Note the last sentence. It really makes you think that you'll be selling a ton of DVDs through them. You'll end up sending them to a Mailbox Etc. type of place and you'll have wasted your money. This is a scam to get free DVDs.

"We are interested in buying some of your gay dvds
titles in "Bulk" to service our adult email customer list of 1.7
million emails(not a spam list, this is our own private mailing list).
In order to get things started, I would need to review some samples of
your dvds. I would also need to review your pricing according to
volume.

Much of our email customers are Credit Card holders and we work hard
to make sure the videos offered to them are videos that would be
appealing to them. If you could please send 15-20+ different Gay DVD
titles(in box cover packaging) for review so we can start from there.
I will choose the best titles and then we can look at buying your
titles in bulk.

Also, please remember to structure a price list based on volume: 600
units, 1300 units, 2500 units, 3500 units."

Did you research them or ask for referances before sending them content?

They tried the same scam on us, but we asked for referances before we would send them any samples. When they didn't reply we knew they are not serious.

Ask for industry referances or examples of their work before sending content to anyone. If they are reputable they will already be working with others in the industry or will have examples of their current work.

JakeCruise - I am sorry to hear about your dealing with the low-lifers, and would like to thank you for the notice/heads-up.

:thumbsup:

Actually, it's worse than that. We didn't get stung by them, but what these people have done to several others is place large orders (500-1500 pieces per title), pay for the order with a credit card, and then, a month later, report the card stolen.

We got an email from them about a year and a half ago. We first contacted our distributor, since we're exclusive for resellers with our distributor. He explained the above info (he'd been burned on it) and I then asked around and found a couple other people that had been suckered by the same scam.

So I had a little fun. I asked them for details. They responded with the most unlikely bunch of answers (Oh, we're such-and-so company, we've been around forever, but we don't like working with distributors because they just rip everyone off and never ship product...) and I then asked about how they sold their product, how they'd acquired their mailing list, what the company name was, etc. and got some response with info that still made no sense.

When I responded back that no one in the business I could find had ever heard of this company, which seemed strange given that they claimed to have a million *BUYERS* (that was the claim to us), and that a company of this size wouldn't have even a perfunctory website... well, I got one more response to the effect of "I hope you'll not worry about these little details and let us give you an order... we'll pay with a credit card."

I offered that we'd sell for that large an order only with a wire transfer. The response I got back was "Well, we can't do that. Sorry you're not interested in taking advantage of this great opportunity, I guess we'll just go to your competition."

They emailed again about a year later, under a different company name, apparently oblivious that they'd contacted us before. I think they prey on smaller companies that are hungry.

Sorry to hear that happened Jake.

Thanks for taking the time to post a public warning, it will help others protect themselves :thumbsup:

Yeah, those people tried to hook me in too.

I smelled a rat when I saw the HUGE bulk orders they claimed that they'd make. Just seemed WAY too good to be true.

I took a look at the email and asked them how customers ordered the DVDs.

"Oh, from the emails", they said.

"But you can't order a DVD from an email.. you'd have to go to a website to place an order, woudlnt' you? And is this a gay or straight mailing list"

"This is both gay and straight", they said.

this went on for an hour or two (if they really were this big they'd NEVER had gotten back to me that fast) and I just stopped responding because I could tell it was jus bullocks.

Sucks you got sucked in.

At least you just lost one copy of each DVD.

I wonder how much porn that guy has stashed in his basement at home if he's doing this all over the web.

Heck... that'd be the best case scenario... worst case being he actually is turning around and selling them to someone pirated.

We got a e mail from them about a year ago to.
But we knew that the numbers that they said they could move was a fantasy.
and they could not show us a web site.

It might be nice for someone to nail the guy and send him to jail. Seems he's hit up a lot of smaller studios, I'm sure he suckers some of them in now and then.

I love to see people like that get what they deserve :)

This is one of the oldest schemes around - as the saying goes "if it sounds too good to be true..."

The company is called mayracom or something like that...they contacted us about a year ago via email...his office is in Ft.Lauderdale. I kind of figured out it was a scam because it sounded suspicious that one person at a company I never heard of before wanted to purchase so many DVDs. Its not everyday you get a call for such a large order...If it was a large distributor with a reputable name, I can understand, but from a company I never heard of made me wonder. My office is located near Ft. Lauderdale so when this guy from this company contact me, I asked for his number. I spoke to him on the phone and told him I like to visit him at his office. He told me he would call me back but never did...so this confirmed my suspicion and I knew this was a scam.

Just recently my production company D&E Productions has recently partnered with White Tiger Releasing (the newest gay DVD distributor) located in Chatsworth...my business partner Rob gets this email...he also knew it was a scam and he contacted me...I warned Rob about this company and this guy representing himself as the owner of the company...he has no website...he has no list....he has no proof that he has a list, we tried getting on his list...never got an email from him or any advertisment...we played along with his game (but of course never sending him product) until we told him that if he wants to purchase he needs to prepay with a cashiers check....never heard from him again.

We are sorry to hear that some of you got "scammed", you just have to be careful...if it sounds to good to be true, it ususally is.


David Adamson
D&E Productions/White Tiger Releasing-Miami
www.allboysvideo.com
www.dandevideo.com

I think they either sell them on ebay or naughtybids or similar sites, or they sell them to black market copiers...

Thanks everyone. Yep, mayracom was their name. I knew it was a risk but I figured, what the hell, it's just 1 copy of each of my titles. I found their original email and this happened two years ago when i didn't have as many titles. So i'm sure they're enjoying my DVDs in China! LOL

-Jake