My mom wanted to send me a nice present for christmas. She resides in the US and I reside in Malta (Europe). I told her I wanted an iPhone 3G, and since there aren’t any available iPhones off contract from AT&T in the US, she searched elsewhere.

She came upone a site: brandmay.com, that listed electronics at HALF THE PRICE. The site was very credible, and even said that they used the PayPal system(right at the bottom of the site page)…. anyway, my mom is very naive, and paid anyway, when the customer support rep. said they needed to be paid through MoneyGram (wire transfer service, offering no guarantee of refund)… I was shocked when she told me, because I work in the financial sector and know these types of scams exist… but she gave me the site name and it seemed very legitimate. They also gave her a UPS tracking number (which turned out to be invalid on www.ups.com)…when she asked them about this, they told her to “wait. the status will change”…and after that… nothing happened! I was supposed to receive this iPhone 5 days later on a shipment from Canada… OK, considering the distance, I kept waiting… but over a MONTH has passed… the website wasn’t uploading anymore, my mom called them: no reply. She emailed them: undelivered… I now checked on website profile info site: ‘who.is’, and found out that ‘brandmay.com’ is INACTIVE. The number provided goes straight to voicemail, saying you have reached “Eddie”…who the hell is Eddie? the rep’s “supposed” name is Jill Nixon… I searched further… turns out the number is a cellular phone; provider: Telus Mobility…no online free directory available…

I have tried searching for scam site lists in every possible way, but to no success. I cannot discover anything about this site, whether a scam, or otherwise!

I don’t know who can help me with this problem… how can my mum get her money back???