Retro Games Consoles

[ladywoman]

Has anyone had any experience of dealing with Retrogamingbox.com of Manchester?
Thanks for any info.

[Buenchico]

I've no direct knowledge of the company. However there are several things which start alarm bells ringing for me when I start digging below the surface.

1. The domain name was only registered 4 months ago. (OK, new businesses have to start somewhere but I'd still be wary of dealing with a new internet trader).

2. The domain name was registered via a privacy service, to hide the identity of the person behind it. (That's something which reputable companies don't do).

3. There's no postal address on the website, in contravention of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2014. It means that if the trader simply runs off with your money, you'll find it very difficult to pursue him for it.

4. The only email address on that website is a Gmail one. Reputable online traders don't usually use such (non-traceable) email services but, instead, pay for a commercial email service, using their own domain name.

5. There's no phone number on the website. (That's not a legal requirement but it's very unusual for a reputable trader).

6. It's clear from the FAQs on that site ("Currently we do not have a list of the games due to copyright") and the 'Legal' page ("Please note that you are paying for the hardware and labor only. We strictly do not sell roms , emulator or any other software") that the trader hasn't paid any licensing fees to load the software that he's using onto his devices. i.e. he's doing so illegally.

7. I've been unable to find any independent review of the site or its products. There are 9 reviews on the site itself (all of which, unsurprisingly, award it 5 stars) but it's hard to see how they got there because there's not actually a facility for submitting bona fide reviews to the site anyway!

My advice is to avoid that site!

[Captain2]

What a fantastic answer Chris - that must have taken some researching.

[Buenchico]

Thanks, Cap'un!

Some further points for good measure:

8. It's unusual that a trader who claims to be selling lots of stuff hasn't registered a limited company. (It's not illegal for a sole trader to sell things on the internet but most big, or even small, legitimate businesses would be run as a limited company).

9. The product is allegedly manufactured in the UK but the device in the illustration looks far more like an illegal 'fully-loaded' Kodi box, probably manufactured in China. A Google Images search finds the same device offered on a website which claims to be trading from London but which is actually using a private postal box (to hide the owner's identity), has also used a privacy service to hide the name of the domain registrant and which has only been in existence for 13 days:
https://www.moondustarcade.com/products/retropi-bundles-up-to-30-000-games?variant=37514563777
(Further, whoever set it up almost certainly isn't in the UK because they've failed to realise that a '1-800' phone number is a US one!)

10. The product is also shown on the website of a trader who is blatantly offering illegal 'IPTV' products to access subscription TV services without payment to the relevant companies:
http://theiptv.co.uk/

All far too dodgy for me!

[ladywoman]

Cheers for that Buenchico, really helpful and many thanks for going into this in such great depth. Hopefully it will be useful to others also. Thanks again