Potential Scam Alert: Tactical Force Gear

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The marketing that caught my attention did so because it was suspicously bad, but bad because I have the experience and knowledge to suspect. I realize not everyone does and so want to point out the suspicious activity of this company to raise awareness of what's out there. It is my assumption that this company is bogus and practicing false advertising, but I have no way to confirm. This post is meant to raise awareness and is not the result of a criminal investigation.

Suspicous Tactical Force Gear email advertisement.

The above image was in an email from this company to whom I never gave my email address nor consented to receive emails from. I was immediately suspicous of the "USA Country of Origin" badge, especially after recently watching a documentary on how Amazon has been plagued with Chinese sellers labeling their goods as, "Made in the USA" when they are in fact not, and Amazon doing nothing to remove such sellers. If you've ever taken a look at optics, you'd know that almost none of them are made in the US. At best they are assembled in the US. The label used in this advertisement seems to be used to make one think "Made in the USA" when in fact is merely stating that the item will ship from the United States.

The email message that accompanied the image had some other eyebrow-raising details that made me want to investigate further. Allegedly these optics were an accidental bulk purchase and to move them quickly they're being offered at $265 off. The "from" was National Guns of Mississippi, but email signed by NationalGunsBroker which sounds like an attempt to glean familiarity with the brand GunBroker. The State of Mississippi has no business registry for "National Guns", nor does the given address exist! For my own entertainment I clicked the ad from a non-US IP address.

image from Tactical Force Gear webpage

The image above is from the webpage the email led me to. Immediately my doubts were amplified. "The Afghanistan War" is not the name of the conflict, nor any operations that took place there (such as Operation Enduring Freedom in which I served in the US Army). Next we have the term "Spec Operators" which is a new term for me. Just right of that is an image of a German Soldier with a 50 Caliber rifle and a scope; none of which matches this story of an alleged US Soldier with this non-magnified red dot being advertised.

I took a look into Tactical Force Gear and discovered that the company was started in 2021, 11 years AFTER the "scope" existed according to the story. Additionally Tactical Force Gear, according to the Better Business Bureau, is operating as Cloud Peak Media Inc and is registered in Wyoming, but has Los Angeles, CA as its alternate address. I googled the physical address and it's either a hotel or a parking garage depending on how the address is typed!

The name "Jason Bates" does belong to a US Army veteran, but he had nothing to do with special operations and held a position that likely did not see combat in Afghanistan in 2010.

By this point I'm sure you're convinced this is a bogus company and product, and more likely than anything a scam as I can't imagine how they would even process orders without a valid legal address for payment processing.

My intent with this piece is to remind everyone to be cautious with their shopping, especially from unsolicited emails. The email I received has an "unsubscribe" button as required, but at this point I'm afraid to click it and will instead simply report the email as spam. I could be completely wrong about the three businesses somehow all involved with this "scope", but as far as I know this is a company to avoid.