Showmores.com product reviews

The old saying "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is" has been proving its truth in ever-increasing amounts since the advent of online shopping, and especially during the global COVID crisis.

While browsing Facebook, I was presented with an advert for a factory-clearance sale of a small, portable laser engraver with some serious Vitamin Wow. It could be used as a handheld or mounted on a stand. You could purchase the expansion module which either gave it a set of rotating rollers for engraving cylindrical objects - pencils, dowel, rolling pis, pens etc - or you could turn it over and they became roller wheels to drive the engraver along an extended burning path. It burned onto almost anything, and even came with a starter pack of media you could use to calibrate the device. I was in love... and while I had a suspicion it was a scam, I went ahead and ordered one anyway... after setting in place a few precautions of course.

My order was confirmed, a few days later I received confirmation that it was in-transit. I was sent tracking numbers, I "saw" it enter NZ, pass through customs, and eventually get flagged as "Ready to Collect" from my local postshop. With the Waikato in Lockdown again, I was excited to have the time to stay home and learn how to make this beastie sing. I had so many plans for it. So with pure delight, I collect my parcel.

From that moment on, I knew I had been scammed by this company, because the parcel fit inside the PO Box... and if it was indeed the device I had ordered, it would have come in a large box, about the size of a box of printer paper at least. So I get home, prepared for the worst, and open the bag. What was inside was a mixed-blessing. I fully expected to find some cheap plastic toy or a low quality dildo or some other such pointless purchase. What I got instead was a sheetmetal nibbler, which at least held some practical value. None the less, it was not the laser I had purchased.

After contacting the seller, I was told that due to being "disappointed with your purchase, we would like to offer you a 10% refund." Ahhh.... #YeahNah. "No thanks, just send me the laser I purchased, thanks." This began a prolonged exchange wherein the company insisted that the correct item had been sent and the problem was my misunderstanding of what I had purchased. I sent them copies of screenshots, their own order- and shipping-confirmation documents that clearly described the purchase as that of a laser engraver not a nibbler, I included photos of the nibbler and shipping paperwork - but they simply refused to investigate since their "...management team have checked and validated this purchase, and the correct item was sent." The clear implication being that I was trying to scam them! Nice... typical con artist tactic.

By the end of the drama, they had agreed to give me a refund of 30% of my purchase price. Geee, thanks.

However, the final laugh was mine, for I am not some n00b to these things. I grew up when the internet was young in NZ, and I have seen almost every scam imaginable. I had paid using an online payment platform that came with its own money-back guarantee (with some terms & conditions, of course) and so I lodged a complaint and a request for a full refund. I expected them to spend 1-2 weeks investigating Showmores.com and refund my money after maybe a month. You can imagine my surprise when I received confirmation of a full refund even before I had logged out of the service panel! When I queried the rapid resolution, I was informed that they were on a known scam list, and my money never actually reached them in the first place! It gets held for 4 weeks just in case... and they were processing refunds daily.

I did wonder why the payment platform even bothered to process transactions in the first place... but to be honest, I figured it was so that the platform could at least charge them fees and boost their "transactions processed" number.

So yes, the final laugh was mine. Not only did I not lose a single cent, I walked away with a profit AND a nibbler. The joke's on you, Showmores... thanks for the money and the tool! At last, a scam that allows the scammed to make the profit, instead of the scammers. That said, I had to take pre-emptive action and do some heavy-lifting via email to make this happen. Not everyone is going to know how to do this, so rather than dive in thinking you will get rich and teach these guys a lesson, I highly recommend you avoid this site at all costs.