New SCAM targeting muzzleloading enthusiasts | What you need to know
I'm Ethan, I love muzzleloading and I wanted to give you a quick update on one of the latest muzzleloading supply scams that I'm seeing to make you aware and to make some of your friends out there aware as we head into the muzzleloading season for events and competition.
As usual, the scammer is going to have a powder, primers, caps , everything that's been hard to find over the past couple years in stock. They're going to have everything you could ask for and they're going to have it for pre-2019 prices. The deals are going to be so good that you're going to want to place your order and get it in route as quickly as possible you'll even notice that the shipping charges are super cheap.After you place your order you're going to get contacted by one of these scam vendors they're going to tell you that they need a required shipping insurance fee in order to process your order this shipping insurance fee is going to range anywhere from 100 to 250 dollars to make sure that your order gets out the door in time these scammers aren't going to tell you about this shipping insurance charge beforehand they're only going to come to you after you've placed your order after you've paid for your shipping insurance fee they're going to then come and inform you that you have to pay a 250 dollar Hazmat fee and then after you've paid your shipping Insurance charge and your Hazmat fee they're going to contact you about a value-added tax and this is going to be an additional 250 dollars on top of the Hazmat shipping insurance and your original order that you've placed and the kicker to all these extra fees and services and taxes that they're talking to you about is that they want you to pay for them all with PayPal friends and family. Now for those of you that have purchased things online for many years, that whole rundown should give you a lot of red flags about things that aren't quite right.
I'm going to break this down and break down this scam line by line to show you that they're using terms, that are legitimate, that legitimate businesses use, to fool you into believing that what they're doing is legitimate.
First up we have the shipping insurance fee. You can purchase shipping insurance through a vendor like the Postal Service to add insurance in case your package gets lost or busted-up during shipment. Typically when you order something and the vendor recommends shipping insurance they're going to offer that to you during the checkout process. I have never ever purchased something through a legitimate business where shipping insurance was tacked on afterwards and was not discussed at all in the checkout process. Now there are businesses out there that are going to recommend adding shipping insurance and they're going to offer it to you at a rate that it costs them to ship and purchase that insurance to make sure that nothing happens or you get reimbursed in case something happens during shipment.
Again it's not illegal or illegitimate to offer or recommend shipping insurance but it's just rare that we see a legitimate business tack an insurance fee on the order after you've placed your order without any notification of that being an option while you were checking out.
Second is the Hazmat fee. If you've ever ordered muzzleloading supplies or in case you haven't because of the nature of muzzleloading supplies they are marked as hazardous materials and that's where this Hazmat fee comes in. If you order something through one of the legitimate muzzle loading supply shops, especially like caps and powder, there's going to be a mandatory Hazmat fee tacked on to that order. Depending on how much you're ordering, the Hazmat fee won't go above $50. So with these scammers asking for a 250 dollar Hazmat fee after you've placed your order, that should be a massive red flag for you. At every legitimate muzzleloading supply shop in business, if you're ordering something that requires a Hazmat fee they're going to show that to you at checkout or they're going to discuss it with you over the phone while you're ordering.
Th third thing here is the VAT or value added tax. This is a big one and I can understand why it's confusing because the value added tax is only something we really see in the European Union so if you're shipping something to Europe you may have to pay that vat tax or that value-added tax on that item. There is no VAT or value-added tax here in in the United States, so if you're ordering something from somebody in the U.S and they're telling you that you have to pay a value-added tax you need to stop right there because there is no valued added tax as of right now March 25th 2023 in the United States .
Last but not least is these scammers are asking you to pay for all this through "PayPal friends and family". They are asking you to pay through "PayPal friends and family" because there is no purchase protection when you use "PayPal friends and family". If you get scammed or suspect that you've been scammed and you've paid with your debit card or your credit card, you can work through your local bank or your credit card company to get that money back. When you pay through "PayPal friends and family", like these scammers are asking you to, you don't have any protection once you pay them. After you pay, the scammers are gone in the night and PayPal is not going to do anything about it, your bank's not going to do anything about it. Unfortunately you're stuck and that's why these scammers are asking you to pay for this stuff through PayPal friends and family.
If you are wanting to shop with a local Craftsman or somebody that makes items for muzzleloading and you're talking to them through a forum or through email or something and they say, "Hey you can pay me through PayPal goods and services or friends and family.", you can do that and and that's fine if that's what you want to do, but really pay attention if you're wanting to order powder, primers and caps and they're asking you to pay for PayPal friends and family.
If you're using PayPal friends and family through a transaction like I've outlined here where they have all these steps that you're they're making you jump through these hoops before you can get your order, you want to pump the brakes and make sure that you're not getting scammed.
Unfortunately I'm able to bring you this detailed of an outline because somebody posted on the I love muzzleloading Facebook group exactly this that it happened to them and they were scammed out of over 600 dollars before they realized that they weren't going to get the items that they'd been paying for. Pay attention out there!
Above I’ve added a button that takes you to our “Muzzleloading 101” page that outlines a lot of details for newcomers into the sport. The businesses listed aren’t paying for their feature here, I host this section of the website as a service to inform the community. If you’d like your business listed, please shoot me an email.