I just started my wedding planning and the first thing I wanted to take care of was my bridal dress, like all brides. Living far away from Pakistan, I was driven by quality, efficiency, and the value of time. I weighed my options, and the lack of time I have due to work obligations made me lean towards ordering a dress with a designer; I just didn’t want to micromanage the process. I wanted to lay out my preferences, be done with it, and receive a quality product.
I tried reaching out to Bunto but wasn’t able to. However, I did get through Dr. Haroon on his [EMAIL=“[email protected]”][email protected] email address. He asked me to call him on his cell phone 300 201 5625 and I did. We briefly spoke and I set up an appointment with him for a few weeks down the line for a meeting. Unfortunately, I had to cancel my appointment because I was unable to make it to Pakistan. I requested if he could provide payment details and following is what I received:
Yes, I see reg flags in the email now, but you don’t see them that clearly when you have spoken to the person on the phone. Also, plenty of vendors use WU in Pakistan with oversees clients as means of payment for clothes, etc. I figured he does too. Tax thing was confusing but rich folks are always trying to hide their money. Besides, the payment is in his name, right? So out of haste to get this on order and my mom’s concern of traveling to Karachi these days, I made the 50% advance payment of 3000 USD online (still kicking myself over that).
Well, as soon as the payment went through, I was asked for another payment to be made to South Africa under someone else’s name. That’s when all my red flags went up! I reached out to him but didn’t get through. A friend (respectable person from this site) made the call to him and he picked up. Before she could finish getting her point across that his account is hacked, he vehemently started saying his account is not hacked and what could he possibly be doing in Turkey or South Africa. He asked her that I call him. When I called, he went on about why didn’t I call him for payment and what could he possibly be doing in those countries. We ended the conversation at “IT people” reviewing his account upon his suggestion. He also gave me his wife’s email address to handle further communication. As soon as I got off the phone with him, I received another email from his email account stating the payment is urgently needed and mentioned his wife’s name, profession and his Karachi address. I was so freaked out by it that I called him up again right way to tell him that whoever this scammer is has all your personal details (mostly driven by Dr. Haroon’s personal exposure to this hacker at this time). He was out at some type of gathering and was very curt. He said, “What do you want me to do?” A normal person’s reaction would be to leave everything behind and change their password, but no, not “Dr. Haroon.” I sent all the email exchanges to his wife’s email address per our phone conversation, but never heard a word from him. Not even a thank you! I added him on Whatsapp and inquired what they determined and his response was “Beta what can I say.” Then the conversation on Whatsapp even got weird:
Someone from this site has already confirmed that he takes full payment after delivery of the dress. She ordered from him last year.
I shared a lot of this exchange in detail with some of the ladies here as it was going on (even a moderator) and they are all speechless. I am still unsure if all of this has been a scam or part of this has been a scam? I probably won’t get these answers, and even if I do, I am sure they won’t offset my loss.
So all I can say is please be careful with your hard earned money and trust no one!!! I am so emotionally exhausted by this experience. This was the first thing I was taking care of and it turned out to be a complete mess.
We discuss fashion and products but we don’t raise more awareness of payment methods with vendors and designers. We really need to since a lot of us place orders back home on regular basis. Lesson learned and I hope you can take something away from this experience also.
