By now if you were a user of PandaBuy, you would have noticed they are no longer taking orders or shipping out packages due to the raid by authorities a little over a week ago. With little communication from PandaBuy users are starting to suspect a exit scam being run by the company.
PandaBuy is facing legal action from over 15 brands, and will have to abide by local laws going further. Due to this it is highly unlikely they will recover at the scale they were at, assuming they do reopen. Many users are looking for specific products PandaBuy wont be able to offer on there website anymore, its likely another agent will step up to take their place. This is only part of the reason users believe PandaBuy is pulling an exit scam.
Hoobuy is likely to be the next to take the place of PandaBuy. You can view available products by clicking below.
What are the other reasons people think it may be a scam?
No Official Announcement
As of Monday, April 22nd there has been no official announcement from PandaBuy about the situation. There has been rumors the warehouse workers went back to sort through remaining packages on the 18th but this has not been confirmed.
By now you would think PandaBuy would have released a statement on their website or via email to users updating them on the situation. Many users have hundreds of dollars worth of goods in storage or shipping and have no idea if there going to get what they ordered or even get a refund.
There has been rumors that the refund team at PandaBuy is operational and sending users their refunds but nobody has been confirmed to have received their refund as of now.
PandaBuy Discord Mods
The only workers from PandaBuy that anyone has had contact with are the moderators in discord. These mods are normally just telling users to wait longer and never have any real information often stating they are waiting to hear from management. If this is an exit scam they are working hard to delay users from knowing for sure. I believe if it is an exit scam the mods in this discord are not in on it and just trying to keep things calm until they know more information themselves.
A more recent message sent in the discord by one of the mods states PandaBuy employees will return to their duties on May 2nd, what exactly this means is unclear. This could mean regular operation of PandaBuy will begin May 2nd or it could mean the workers are just going to start sorting through the remaining items in the warehouses on the 2nd. This again could just be a way to prevent suspicion for another week with another delay coming on that date.
How active the mods have been in the discord varies, sometimes they are very responsive and seem to be helping users and other times they are ignoring all messages and just occasionally sending a general message such as “pls wait for notice, after everything back to normal, we handle this problem that products that are about to expire and those that expired during this period”. This may just vary mod to mod and how much contact each has had with management.
Old Tracking Numbers
Some users claim after attempting to chargeback on PayPal, PandaBuy has been uploading old tracking numbers to prevent the chargeback from being successful. While this is just speculation there are many posts about it popping up on reddit and being sent in the PandaBuy discord.
If this is true PandaBuy is definitely not coming back and will be trying to keep as much money as they possibly can. Charging back with your credit card may be the best option, but for now I would recommend just giving it more time as your card company likely gives lots of time for you to issue a chargeback and this may all clear up in the coming weeks.
New Agents
As you may have noticed many new agents are popping up daily sense the raid. I would advise to stay away from these as its hard to say if they are all legit. For now I would recommend not buying reps and give it time. If you must make an order you should use a trusted source such as Hoobuy. You can find a list of products available through Hoobuy here.