repairsadvisor.com the biggest hacking scam ever.
Yes, repairsadvisor.com is a SCAM. And we got the conclusion that they have a team of hackers, ready to steal customers' personal data and credit cards.
We conducted a full investigation into this website, which appears to be located in Hong Kong, China. And that part is true. There is a company named "REPAIRS ADVISOR LLC LIMITED" in Hong Kong.
But this information is not posted on their website; it is just an address, a fake one, of course. Why is it fake? At the same address, more than 100 other companies are incorporated. And that is saying everything about this "business". And this is just the beginning. Their products are not ready for instant download, and after you order, you will get this message:
We're currently processing parts of your order. Your link(s) will be emailed to your registered email address and available on your account within a few hours. Sometimes this may take up to 24 hours.
They did not say anything about this before you ordered. On the opposite, they are writing this:
- Instant access to your manual anytime, anywhere, on any device.
We try to pay with CC. Surprise, it didn't work, and the scary thing is that they are collecting the cards' data!! It wasn't an error; it just doesn't go anywhere after we click pay now. That is the biggest issue for any customer: their card data has been stolen.
We finally paid via PayPal, and after one day, we received what they call the "Factory repair manual". But is not. First, we received a RAR file, inside which were three files in PDF, each one covering a few chapters. The "manual" was obviously stolen from Mitchell 1 (which is not an OEM factory repair manual), and the quality is absolutely execrable. The bookmarks are completely useless, they insert some 5-6 bookmarks to more than 1k pages, making them completely useless. You simply cannot find anything in the files; there are hundreds of procedures missing completely. Poor images, the wiring diagrams section has only 200 pages, cannot trust to fix anything on the car with those. On every page, there are references to other sections, but you cannot find them; this is a complete nightmare for anyone. And, to make matters even worse, the PDF files actually contain all possible versions of the car model for that year! Even if we order a specific model/year/engine.
But the weird things just started. On their home page, there is a fake review collector:
Customers should have received an email about the review, but they did not, even though they show you on the product page that they are collecting reviews, and reviews.io is collecting those automatically, like any other review collector.
Surprise, there is no asking for a review. And we continue the investigation. The real shock, just come to us. In two years, and more than 20k sales, these guys have collected exactly 22 reviews, all positive!
Our conclusion was that it is impossible to automatically collect reviews from 20k people and obtain only 22 reviews.
Why are they doing this? Of course, they do not want to get the real opinion from customers, real customers. They just try to foul customers and maybe steal credit card data.
And there is more. We checked the Facebook page, and it has 1.1k followers. All of them, fake Facebook pages, all created from Vietnam! That was a terrible work to do, I mean, you really need to work to create 1100 pages on Facebook. And this is giving the real dimension of faking of these guys. Check:
https://www.facebook.com/RepairsAdvisorOfficial/followers
Isn't this really funny? Why did you assign a dog from Vietnam to create 1100 fake pages on Facebook just to follow you?
About the real owner behind this. The guy's name is Quyet Tran, and, another surprise, he is from Vietnam!
Check this:
Now we get the explanation about the fake registration in Hong Kong and fake Facebook pages coming from Vietnam. Which company, by the way, has had to change the office address twice in two years because the USA put that office in Hong Kong on the OFAC Sanctions List. So, they decide to change the address, not far away.
They are also lying about the available products. For example, in the Toyota section, you will be impressed by the number of categories. But another surprise, 75% of them have no content at all. There are hundreds of empty categories...
They are also lying about each product's download count. Why do you need to wait if the product was already downloaded 100 times before?
Which reviews should you read? The 22 collected in 2 years. OMG.
This website is clearly a SCAM, and be careful about the credit cards. It is just a joke. We will contact reviews.io to find out what is happening with this website. And their official statement will be published here.
Why did they choose to locate their business in Hong Kong, China? Because those are communists, and they do not care about the copyrights of anyone, so they just copy everything they can to sell, without having the legal right to do so. And of course, the final product will be for an entire generation, five engines, six transmissions, and 20 different trims. Good luck with your repairs!
Our final conclusion is that a bunch of busy bees from Vietnam set up an offshore ghost company in China to steal and cheat customers, using hacking methods. They are stealing some poor copies from Mitchell1, selling to customers fakes.
Certainly, we will come back and provide more details on this "business". Our advice? Stay away, you and your credit card, from this company. Seems to have some experts on hacking.
We will let them the right to respond, of course. Very curious about that.