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I have been offered a cheap VAIO VGN-TXN notebook from a Hong Kong supplier using the e-mail address .
Has anyone ever dealt with this company or heard of its reputation?

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Dani AI

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Agree with and . A deep discount + a free mailbox + overseas shipping are classic red flags. Before you send a cent, identify the business behind that email and verify it independently. Ask for the company’s full legal name, HK business registration number, physical address, and a phone you can call. Then check that info yourself via the Hong Kong Companies Registry search and services at the official site Hong Kong Companies Registry. If they have a business domain, check when it was registered (very new domains are a bad sign) using ICANN Lookup. If they send product photos, run a reverse image search to spot reused images from other sites: Google Images.

Do a quick technical sanity check on the message. View the full email headers and confirm the Return-Path/Reply-To match the From, and that SPF/DKIM/DMARC show as pass for the sending domain. This does not prove legitimacy (free providers can pass), but failures are a strong warning. Example commands if you save the headers to a file:

# Inspect key header lines
grep -Ei '^(from:|reply-to:|return-path:|received:|dkim-signature:|spf|dmarc)' headers.txt

# Check DMARC/SPF for a claimed business domain (not free mail)
nslookup -type=txt _dmarc example.com
nslookup -type=txt example.com

Payment is where most people get burned. Use only methods with chargeback and buyer protection (major credit card via an invoiced payment). Avoid wire transfers, money remitters, crypto, or gift cards. Ask for a pro forma invoice on company letterhead, references you can call, and a fresh, date-in-photo picture of the exact unit (to prove possession). If they refuse any of this, walk away. As said, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

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Member Avatar for John A

I wouldn't trust spam that arrives in my inbox...

Member Avatar for RwCC

Yes never trust these Emails! A big hint would have been that it is a freely available Yahoo! address and not a company one.

I like to live by this:
If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.

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