Watch out for viabox

[pudde]

Lost a lot of money with these guys. Constantly giving me excuses, and when I asked for proof of their excuses it never holds up. They will blame other companies for their mistakes. If you do some searching you will find their criminal past exposed. Be aware that Viaddress is the old name for viabox.

Search terms: Viabox FAA
"$70,020 civil penalty against Viabox of Elkhart, Ind."

Viaddress WSBT
"According to the attorney general's office, they have received complaints from all over the world, including Canada, Russia, Australia, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The Better Business Bureau has 45 complaints on file and in just four months the Elkhart County Sheriff's office has received 180 complaints."

Viaddress BBB
"BBB file experience shows a pattern of complaints alleging that the firm did not deliver the packages as agreed."
In the "industry comparison" link at the bottom of the page, you will find 53 companies within the same business category (mailing services). Viabox has the most complaints over a 36 month period.
BTW viabox is classified as the smallest size business, and for such a small size business to gather that many complaints within a 36 months period and with no other business having nearly as many complaints serves as a huge huge red flag.
For a company that claims to be the "leader in package forwarding", that's an incredible low size to be a "leader" of an international business category with so much exposure.

Viaddress sitejabber
Viabox sitejabber
Same company, but 1 of them has only 1.5 stars, the other has 4. Look at the 5 star reviews massed up in the viabox one. They also like to post 5 star reviews quickly after 1 star reviews. Incredibly its always 5 stars.

Look at their facebook and twitter page. Its only filled with reviews of items, and im not even sure if its automated or human. You can try scrolling down to find just 1 human reply, go ahead and try it!

Viaddress robinmonk
Many people warning of making police complaints. Ray caples of elkhart county did an investigation. If the bad reviews were so blatantly illegitimate, would the police even bother to take it seriously? Also this quote proves that viabox gets their employees to make good reviews on websites.
Quote: "Admin’s note, this message was posted from the same IP addresses as Gerard/Steve before, and would appear to be someone working for VIAddress. The comment by John above is totally correct and legitimate, and I simply allow this comment to be posted to show the overall pettiness and stupidity of this person, and probably of VIAddress as a whole. /Robin"
Quote: ".. they employed spammers to post positive reviews of their service on blogs, forums and review sites. This led to excellent ratings, like on Trustpilot, where they managed to engineer a 5 star rating. However, in reality they are more like a budget, 2 star operation."

ripoffreport viaddress
Quote: "Searching the internet shows I'm not the only person with this problem, there seems to be hundreds of us out there."

pissedconsumer viabox
Qoute: "The only fraudulent activity going on here is the lack of transparency and deceptive conduct by Viabox."
Only 1 out 18 issues resolved
Claimed losses: $12.3K

complaintsboard viabox
Quote: "What I mean by lost, is that they never send me the package, and they always response with "We are sorry, We apologize". and all that ****"


Deceptive business practices
A customer that has a small quantity of items with small costs, probably isn't going to find "missing" items. But the more expensive your items are, and the greater their quantity, you can probably find yourself "missing" items.
Then comes the long refund "investigation." Be prepared to spend months exchanging emails, without any firm guarantees that you will receive ANYTHING least of all your refund.

There is no oversight over the employees that transport your items. Ifone of the employees steal your item, and they do not admit to their stealing the item, you will be hard pressed to prove that any such employee did steal your item. Very little oversight by 3rd parties, or data recording for which employee handles what items. So they will record your item is in a warehouse, but it may get "moved" or "transported", and you will have little data of who specifically is involved in the transition.
They will not always provide you with receipts showing your purchase, only in their webpage can you see your item's details.

[notorial dissent]

I'm sorry, it's late, i'm tired, my head hurts, and my eyes are fuzzy, HUNHHH!!! Who or what is this entity, a little preamble/history/explanation would be appreciated by those of us playing along at home and not having the magic play book.

Two questions, how did you pay for said merchandise and why wasn't it insured?

[noblepa]

I was wondering the same thing, myself. So, I Googled it.

Apparently, it is a private mailbox company that allows one to receive packages and have them forwarded to one's real address, thus concealing it from the sender. They also tout the avoidance of sales tax by large vendors such as Amazon.

https://www.viabox.com/faq

Their FAQ makes them look a little shady to me. It seems that they are deliberately selling their services to those who may not be completely legit and are looking for a way to avoid being tracked down. I may be wrong about that, though.

[notorial dissent]

b]That doesn't seem to jibe with the author's complaint. [/b]

[eric]

I was wondering the same thing, myself. So, I Googled it.
https://www.viabox.com/faq
Their FAQ makes them look a little shady to me. It seems that they are deliberately selling their services to those who may not be completely legit and are looking for a way to avoid being tracked down. I may be wrong about that, though.

Some things about their services appear to me to be a little bit on the edge. From their web site:

I want to buy items from U.S. websites but they won't ship to my international address. Can Viabox.com allow me to access these deals?
With your own US address from Viabox.com, you will be able to buy goods far cheaper than otherwise possible. Most of US merchants will not ship to international addresses, but now you can! Ship the goods to your established address with us and we will then consolidate all your packages and ship them to you outside the U.S.

At many times in my previous career I have had to purchase parts from the US that had export controls on them - everything from "hot" isotopes to Vitamin Q capacitors (useful for nuke detonation circuitry, but also required for high intensity strobes) to the dreaded high temperature O rings ( a commodity item in the oil industry but may be useful for building centrifuges for extracting bomb grade uranium). Viabox may be simply trying to simplify their faq's, but it could be interpreted to mean that they are offering a means to avoid all that nasty paperwork.
BTW, I understand the necessity for export controls, but when it means that vendors such as McMaster-Carr or Fisher Scientific, beloved by service engineers because they stock everything and would ship the next day to a drop point in the middle of nowhere, have to cancel service to Canada it gets to be a pain in the butt. Similarly, shipment consolidation was a service that I used often when there wasn't a rush, but it wasn't advertised as a means of export control avoidance, just as a cost saver. Get everything from all our US suppliers consolidated into one shipment that came in on a weekly basis so that instead of paying for a truck every day of the week we could get everything into one truck.

[pudde]

Sorry, I should have explained what they do more clearly. Yes they forward your packages, using their address as a temporary storage address to help international customers that for whatever reason, legal or not, some shops wont send directly. Whether people use them for shady businesses, I don't know about that myself, seems likely they do. If that is the case, that would make viabox even more suspicious. Also im not here to earn money or promote other businesses. Some claims viabox make are outright lies. For example, the claim that they are a "leader in package forwarding", compared to BBB's classification of them as a smallest size business. Other claims like being cheaper than the competition are false. Their price ranges from half the cost of all your items, to more than the full cost for 1-2 shipping. (This range doesnt apply to small items, but larger ones, usually with the full cost of your goods > $500 - 400) I have done business with companies that offer as cheap a service. But besides their false claims, they also produce false statements when communicating with them. I also noticed them making personal attacks. Then we have fake 5 star reviewers on sites. They also want to hide their criminal past, which is why they changed name from viabox to viaddress. If you look up viaddress, it has a terrible reputation.

[Arthur Rubin]

For example, the claim that they are a "leader in package forwarding", compared to BBB's classification of them as a smallest size business.

I would describe that as puffery, rather than "lies". I'm not saying that you have not provided other indications of fraud, but that one isn't it. Sorry.

[pudde]

The company managed to produce a refund and found the missing item as well.