centerstick - 50% off, is it a scam?

[Garrett1234567]

Ive been watching all the post regarding the 50% off sale centersticks.com is having and after WillJames post about a clone account and possible scam, the thread was closed. I would like to hear from people that have placed orders now and in the past so we might understand if it is a fraud before myself and others place their orders.
I would really like to hear from centersticks and see why he closed his thread after Will's last comment. I know this is probly not the place to post this but i think the right people will see it here.
Thanks for your time.
Garrett

[arturoo1977]

I almost get caught yesterday. I had a full shopping cart but then a lot of warnings about site's security came up and abort my shopping.
I hope its just a miss understanding with this guy but I'll not buy in a site with security issues, no matter how low prices are.

Greetings

[WillJames]

Originally Posted by Garrett1234567

Ive been watching all the post regarding the 50% off sale centersticks.com is having and after WillJames post about a clone account and possible scam, the thread was closed. I would like to hear from people that have placed orders now and in the past so we might understand if it is a fraud before myself and others place their orders.
I would really like to hear from centersticks and see why he closed his thread after Will's last comment. I know this is probly not the place to post this but i think the right people will see it here.
Thanks for your time.
Garrett

Time will tell if it is a scam or not. I am the one who closed the thread after the IP check revealed that there was a clone account created after 10 PM last night to act like a third party from centerstick's own residential IP. Definitely does not look good so I posted the warning. I have been informed that there are some people who have some kind of problem with centerstick but I have not heard from them directly. The fact that he is knowingly and willfully breaking the rules with as well as creating a shill clone account does not look good at all and is not something that is going to take place on here. I hope nobody gets scammed due to his post here, but as anyone knows who has been on HF a while, threads all over like that, with shill clone and the rest definitely does not look good and is definitely not condoned to tolerated on this site.

I would like to suggest that we use this thread for the people who directly dealt with him and I would warn any more of you not to buy and wait this out as the approach of centerstick is very suspect at best. Our support guys were on it fast and hopefully we can help warn people this sure appears to be less than honorable at best.

[Garrett1234567]

Thanks for the posts guys. Will, is centerstick still an active member or did you ban his account. If its not banned id like to hear from him in this thread. Good luck to all and merry Christmas.
Garrett

[WillJames]

Originally Posted by Garrett1234567

Thanks for the posts guys. Will, is centerstick still an active member or did you ban his account. If its not banned id like to hear from him in this thread. Good luck to all and merry Christmas.
Garrett

After creating multiple for sale threads in non for sale forums and general forums as well as creating a clone account to shill, he needs to get in touch with me and I will relay whatever he has to say to you guys.

It is a tough decision but trying to shield any more people from being had by a potential scam is very important to me and our staff. There is no way to know 100% at this point and I hope that the exposure of the clone shill will help the people who have purchased from him to receive their items they purchased.

If you see threads like his in the future pop up after my bed time in EST, and in multiple forums that are general forums and for sale forums that say *NO Commercial Ads on them, you should assume that something is wrong as we do not allow people to advertise like centerstick did in general and per our Terms of Use. For those who did buy it would probably have been best to hold of until morning until I could do some research and take the not fun but necessary action, but there is no way to know 100% anything other than the guy was obviously breaking the rules and somehow an account from his own IP pops up acting like a third party (hheli with a single post in centersticks thread) talking about how fair his shipping rates are. That is a definite red flag IMHO.

Above all else, we definitely do not want to see this site used to scam honest people and we will not tolerate it. This "gentleman" sure is quacking like a duck and enough rules have been broken to where we needed to step in and shut him down here on HF. Who knows where else this is going on besides here but time will tell. I hope it works out for the people who purchased from him. If he had followed the rules and asked without a clone account and I thought he was being truthful things might have gone a lot differently but you never know it sure does not look like everything is on the up and up. As many of you who have been here a while know, we are always happy to help someone who is having to go out of business and in my experience all of the ones who have, like Dennis at DeeTee talked to me first and we helped them liquidate what they needed to move. People who approach it like centerstick did, well..... so far I don't know of any specifically who were not trying to get over on our management team or our members either one.

[taoY]

Damm!
I placed orders worth $200 last night. I will have my fingers crossed.
And will report back if I received the goods.

Thanks for the warning.

[Perschek]

I hope you guys didn't get scammed. Lucily he doesn't have any eflite stuff so I wasn't intrigued into buying, but I definitely took a look. Personally I think if he was trying to screw people over that he would have had more of a selection up there. To me I think that he was just trying to get everything he could out of it, and since helifreak is such a large website what better place to look?

Hopefully anyways. hope all of you that ordered end up with your products, or at least your money back if it doesn't come.

It's funny, I know unrelated, but I hadn't used ebay in years, and the other day I was bidding on a helicopter kit or parts or something and every time I'd be outbid by f***s or something like that, I thought for sure this company was fake bidding to increase the price that they got for there items. Called ebay sent messages and everything, turns out they mask the bidders user names now felt like a dumby, more than normal that is.

[WillJames]

Originally Posted by Perschek

I hope you guys didn't get scammed. Lucily he doesn't have any eflite stuff so I wasn't intrigued into buying, but I definitely took a look. Personally I think if he was trying to screw people over that he would have had more of a selection up there. To me I think that he was just trying to get everything he could out of it, and since helifreak is such a large website what better place to look?

Hopefully anyways. hope all of you that ordered end up with your products, or at least your money back if it doesn't come.

It's funny, I know unrelated, but I hadn't used ebay in years, and the other day I was bidding on a helicopter kit or parts or something and every time I'd be outbid by f***s or something like that, I thought for sure this company was fake bidding to increase the price that they got for there items. Called ebay sent messages and everything, turns out they mask the bidders user names now felt like a dumby, more than normal that is.

I know what you mean, hopefully this turns out ok for the people who bought but it will take time to know for sure. The only think we do know is the approach sure looks fishy.

[Garrett1234567]

taoY, i hope you get your goods. Please let us know of any contact you have with them like order status updates or anything. Good luck
Garrett

[Blucross]

I placed an order for a Trex 600 kit and a few other items yesterday, and was concerned after seeing various posts here and on another forum.

I will say that Scott has responded to my emails almost instantly from his iPhone each time I have sent one. I haven't called but I do know other members who called and spoke to him directly as well.

He just responded to my email (and it is 7am where he is) and assured me my package would ship out today and I would have confirmation of such.

I am trying to add up all the pieces and although there are lots of pieces that smell like a scam, I am hoping it's not the case. They have been around for 3 years, people have talked to him directly by phone, and he responds to emails in a timely manner. If it is a scam, it would have to be pretty elaborate.

I asked Scott to contact Will and set things straight so some of us can feel more at ease. We'll see what happens

[Garrett1234567]

Communication is always good. I hope we find out soon. If its legit i have an order i need to get placed for my 450

[Rob0506]

This does look fishy, but one thing that indicated that it may NOT be a scam is that he was out of stock on a lot of items. Still, I'm glad I didn't have the money to buy anything right now.

I'll definately be watching this thread to see what happens. Good luck, everybody.

[Jeffster]

Everyone calm down. I just spoke to him on the phone and I haven't found one reason why he would be a scam. He's fulfilling orders but he was flooded with 200+ orders so hopefully they should all be marked shipped w/ tracking this afternoon. Centerstick is closing their doors and they are just trying to clear out inventory.

[Blucross]

I just received a reply from Scott again, he wanted to speak on the matter of shill accounts and what's going on.

This is from the email he sent me just now:


"Greg,
I know it sounds to good to be true, but it is true. We have to close our doors and to clear out our inventory we did this ridiculous sale for everyone. To give back to our customers. As of right now I have been blocked out of HeliFreak, Runryder, they have both blocked my IP address. To clear up some rumors I had to make another account as HHELI so that I could continue informing the thread. But I had to act like I was a regular guy because both RR and HF had been moving the thread and shutting down my account. I am heading into the shop now and orders should be shipping by noon, I understand your concerns, but when you have your product in hand in 3-5 days, you will be reassured you scored. Too bad for the guys that were a little gun shy and didn't pull the trigger, our inventory will be gone by then. Well thanks for the information and hope that you can pass some of this along, since I have been blocked out by RR and HF. Thanks"



I should have a tracking number later today, I will update this thread whether I get confirmation or not. Thanks again to HF staff for having our best interests at heart. It means more than you know.

[WillJames]

Originally Posted by Orlampa

I just received a reply from Scott again, he wanted to speak on the matter of shill accounts and what's going on.

This is from the email he sent me just now:


"Greg,
I know it sounds to good to be true, but it is true. We have to close our doors and to clear out our inventory we did this ridiculous sale for everyone. To give back to our customers. As of right now I have been blocked out of HeliFreak, Runryder, they have both blocked my IP address. To clear up some rumors I had to make another account as HHELI so that I could continue informing the thread. But I had to act like I was a regular guy because both RR and HF had been moving the thread and shutting down my account. I am heading into the shop now and orders should be shipping by noon, I understand your concerns, but when you have your product in hand in 3-5 days, you will be reassured you scored. Too bad for the guys that were a little gun shy and didn't pull the trigger, our inventory will be gone by then. Well thanks for the information and hope that you can pass some of this along, since I have been blocked out by RR and HF. Thanks"



I should have a tracking number later today, I will update this thread whether I get confirmation or not. Thanks again to HF staff for having our best interests at heart. It means more than you know.

I can't speak for RR, but the threads were not shut down and he was not blocked from HF until I got my wife off to work about 7:00 AM EST.(we have snow on the ground and she had to be taken down to our feeder road to get to her car.) The clone shill account was created last night at 11:25 PM EST. Also, if you look at the threads, he was posting here on HF as both his centerstick account and hheli so it is obvious he is not telling the truth. His own posts are right here for everyone to see. In fact, I blocked his hheli account at 7:09 AM EST and his centerstick account at 7:13 EST this morning. That is fact.

So, basically a false statement by Scott. What he is saying makes no logical sense and further shows his intent is not to be honest as what he is saying did not happen. I am also the only one on this site that can block a members IP address and like I said, I was sleeping while all this took place until I posted about it and took action this morning. Not true Scott.

I truly hope you guys who purchased get your stuff, because what he is saying is definitely not true. Sorry guys, if you see this kind of thing pop up at night while most of our staff is asleep, you need to apply some restraint to your CC's and PayPal accounts. I really hope this works out for you guys.

[Blucross]

Originally Posted by WillJames

...you need to apply some restraint to your CC's and PayPal accounts.

Have you been talking to my wife?!?

You are so right.

[WillJames]

Originally Posted by Orlampa

Have you been talking to my wife?!?

You are so right.

All wives think like that.... I have been programmer by mine.

[FlyawayClyde]

Originally Posted by taoY

Damm!
I placed orders worth $200 last night. I will have my fingers crossed.
And will report back if I received the goods.

Thanks for the warning.

I hope you didnt get scammed man!!!!!!

[Marlonr1985]

If it was a scam y would they limit on merchandise.. half the stuff was out of stock.. someone that was going to scam would just let the orders keep coming ...

[dyin2fly]

I WAS GOING TO ORDER SOME THINGS FOR MY 400 BUT HE DIDNT HAVE ANYTHING IN STOCK, SO I PROBABLY GOT LUCKY.
HOPE EVERYTHING TURNS OUT ALRIGHT FOR EVERYONE THOUGH.
WILL- GOOD JOB !!!!