ONLINE SHOPPING SCAMS / FRAUDS WEBSITES

At 29th of August besthdelectronics.com was registered on godaddy.com and went online as a shopping website.
In reality it was nothing more than a scam/fraud website with only one purpose, steal your credit card and identity information and most probably resell them for peanuts.
This website was not and is not alone or the only one. Another one the kgadgets.co.uk also registered the same date was very similar to the previous in terms of design and had the exact same purpose. This also went offline a few days after I discovered it.

There are a few things in common on scam / fraudulent shopping online web-pages.

1. T have too good to be true prices. That is the bait. Visitors think they are mis-prices or just excellent deals and go for it regardless.
2. They have no online reputation. Zero or minimal Google results. A shopping site that just started has of course zero reputation but usually somehow throughother means, even if just online.
3. So far they had no contact details at all. No telephone number, no vat registration, no post address, no owners name, no email, not even P.O. box.
4. They had an online contact form, you could fill and ask questions but they NEVER replied.
5. Because usually they copy other websites, they have inconsistencies. For example they may state they are 10 years in business, but then you look their webpage copyright and it is for different number of years.
6. These particular ones after you made a purchase, they rushed to ask for credit card details BEFORE providing postage information. I mean ok, some provide free postage, but they tell you they do so.
7. Once you made a transaction through their system, your order would be canceled! Of course since they do not sell anything, they don't want to raise suspicion on themselves.

I am pretty sure they have read this blog and have seen my remarks that reveal their fraudulent nature. And this probably means that next time, they will probably make sure to cover most if not all the points above, for example by using some kind of fake telephone number, or some sort of fake VAT registration number, or some fake address, or some fake or real email.

The bottom line is this: BE CAREFUL OF ONLINE SHOPPING SCAMS / FRAUDS. There are a lot out there. If by any chance you had shared your details with some suspicious website, I would suggest to cancel your card at once!

and God bless as my Nigerian "friends" say.