Oh boy, what a great deal on Laguna woodworking tools – you can save thousands of dollars!
Some of Laguna’s most popular tools, such as their band saws, are more than 95% off.
What a great deal? Wrong. This is a SCAM.
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$149 for a table saw? SCAM.
$149 for this planer? SCAM.
Laguna cautioned on their social media page about a fake website with scam prices, but it seems they haven’t been able to get it taken down yet.
We’ve had the same issue with Namecheap hosting a copycat imposter ToolGuyd site. Their legal contacs declined to even respond to our numerous inquiries.
Do not give the fake store any money. You’re not getting Laguna machinery at a 90%+ discount.
The fake site has some red flags, but looks like it could be legit if not for the suspiciously low prices. Large parts of the scam website looks to use code and images stolen from Laguna.
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Mentions of the fake scam store having being a “guaranteed safe checkout” and “trusted store” badge are also red flags.
Laguna does sell tool directly, but not at such deep discounts.
Trust your gut feelings. If it seems too good to be true, it usually is.
MM
$150 wouldn’t even cover the shipping on one of those, let alone pay for the tool itself.
Stuart
Yep.
The problem is that deep discounts trigger an emotional response in a lot of people, an “oh boy I need to get in on this!” type of sentiment.
A lot of shoppers will jump onto obvious price mistakes as well, thinking “it’s worth a shot.”
Care and logic take a backseat, leading shoppers to fall for the scam.
Peter
Are there really people going for 95% off for something like this?
I would think a discount that high would have the alarm bells ringing even at the most trusting person.
Stuart
Amazon sold me a Beta tool cabinet and a set of Torx keys for $0.00 once.
Here is a classic “is it on sale or a price mistake?” deal:
https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/bosch-18v-cordless-drill-impact-driver-new-versions-for-90/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Amazon ultimately honored 1 per customer.
A few years ago Home Depot had a clearance sale or similar or Ridgid floor standing drill presses. On a deals forum, there was at least one post essentially saying “I got one! What can I do with it?”
Peter
Wow, I did not know that but buying from a non site like HD is also a bit different and worth a try.
Tmq
That’s not really a relevant comparison though. That deal is at least believable. Anyone who is foolish enough to think they could get a $7,000 tool for $149.99 is going to find themselves being taken advantage of on a daily basis.
Shane
If the deal looks too good to be true, then it is.
There are an increasing number of scammer sites for ALL of the tool brands, not just Laguna.
When in doubt, Google the address and/or call the phone number on the site. That can usually will show you sites that aren’t legit. Also, Google Reviews are a good source of truth.
Also, going to the manufacturer’s where-to-buy page and searching by zip code to see if the site is an authorized reseller.
Unfortunately, Google is doing a horrible job of preventing scammer activity on their paid advertising platform. I see paid ads for scammer sites all the site. Many of them will actually copy legit websites’ designs and logos, so beware of that as well.
Here are two more quick examples of scammer sites that I’ve just seen this morning.
Festool Site 1
Festool Site 2
Stuart
(I edited out the links because it can sometimes legitimize them, and because we usually share tips about red flags and don’t want to help scammers learn and adjust.)
Mike
I found listing for Laguna Fusion Table Saw 2 for under $60. There are a number of these sellers when you run a Google shopping search.
There are several web sites where you can run a web address to see if the site is legitimate .
Checking one of these tool sites, I got
Negative highlights
According to Tranco this site has a low rank
The registrar has a high % of spammers and fraud sites
This website is (very) young.
John
People just can’t be that damn stupid. Caution hot, cliff high, arm in alligator mouth bad.
Stuart
Scammers keep doing what they’re doing because they’re making money.
The only way to combat this is to spread the word, inform people, and point out red flags to look out for next time.
TomD
You also have second order scammers – who sell wanna be scammers on doing this and charge them, even if the scam never actually works.
mark
As I understand it, part of scammers approach these days is actually to have it kind of be a blatant scam to those witha little know-how. This helps them only bait people they may have a shot successfully scamming. (Ex:some tool being sold at super low price, obviously numbers don’t make sense, but now those who interacted with the scam anyways are likely a group unable to have this common sense to realize it’s a scam before it’s too late due to some lack of knowledge the scammers rely on)
Mike
Maybe it is Laguna clearing out old model numbers. It is sort of their way. Bad tools just get news names hahaha. (I know its a scam of course)
Stuart
That’s the problem – the plausibility of these “deals” leads consumers to self-justify and convince themselves it could be real.
An urgency factor helps to push things along.
fred
While these prices are so low as to set off alarm bells – sometimes the phony “discounts” are set at less suspicious levels. Amazon used to be (may still happen) plagued by pop-up vendors that offered very enticing prices on name brand merchandise and might then deliver fakes or perhaps nothing at all.
When I bought my Leica Disto 810 in 2016 one such Amazon site had it priced about $100 lower than I could find it anywhere else. I did not do my due diligence to see that the seller had recently launched, and they fooled me into buying. Weeks after the promised delivery date and several fruitless attempts to contact the seller, Amazon put a credit back on my charge card. I now know better.
eddie sky
I agree but also, there is NO way Laguna or other large tool maker will have a clearance or sale practically 95% off.
But if someone falls for this, well, they reap what they sow…
TomD
It can happen; I’ve seen it. The difference is that it’s one or two items out of thousands at normal/reasonable prices.
Not an entire storefront of too good to be true.
Jim Felt
P. T. Barnum again wins the Darwin Award?
So at least we’re not discussing the fact that Netflix has an active job posting for a “machine learning product manager” at up to $900,000 per annum.
Exactly what the screen actors, writers and producers are striking over…
Champs
Even if one of these literally fell off a dock, I’m doubtful that these prices cover the scrap value. This is a particularly obvious scam, but thank you for the public service.
Ray
My Nigerian friend sells these tools at even lower prices….
S
“Mentions of the fake scam store having being a “guaranteed safe checkout” and “trusted store””
Technically, sending them the money can be 100% secure. Just don’t expect anything in return for the transaction except a lighter wallet!
And “trusted store” is as vague as jobs offering “competitive wages”. I’m sure the person behind the site trusts the store. Just as many jobs so called ‘competitive wages’ are really just competing against receiving no income at all.
Brian
Other red flags include:
– Inconsistent font choices (particularly the Times New Roman-style font that a lot of Chinese products use when translating, as seen in the above article screenshots)
– Improperly cut out product images (white pixels around image)
– Broken, unprofessional English in the marketing copy
– No listed street address or phone number
– Phone number is different from actual company’s phone number
– Fake street addresses or addresses registered inside of office buildings
– WHOIS data for the website shows a very new domain registration for a very old brand
– Newly issued SSL certificates (if they have one)
– Constant barrage of urgency
– Ads on the page (legit bigger companies don’t put ads on their sites, they make money on their products)
– HTML source code seems to be copy-pasted or based heavily on a template from another site. Scammers often set up dozens of sites at once and frequently forget to change references to other scam sites in the source code. You may end up with a Milwaukee scam site referencing Ninja blenders in the HTML elements.
Bob
I suspect that no only do you not get a Laguna machine at these prices, once they have your payment info, they will sell your payment and other personal data to others.
bg100
The popup on the bottom left saying “someone just bought this again” is another giveaway that you are dealing with a sketchy outfit. No legitimate (look you in the eye with a firm handshake) retailer uses this tactic, and I do not give my personal/ payment info to a site that does this.