It’s easy to shop online. In fact it’s so easy that there are an estimated 32 million of us, here in the UK, who will opt to purchase goods online this year. The high majority of sites selling online are genuine, however, there is an ever-growing trend of websites set-up by cyber criminals to con online consumers into buying fake goods or just to harvest your credit/debit details.
I remember, a few years back, when my better half took to searching online for a certain type of boots for a christmas present. After a simple Google search and a few seconds later, she was rather impressed when she thought she’d found a bargain online. Here, were the desired boots and at half-price as well! Just before she went through the purchasing pages, she mentioned to myself off her extraordinary online bargain.
I ran a few searches on the site in question and found that although it had a .co.uk address – the domain registration was to someone in China. OK nothing too suspicious in that but enough to ring the alarm bells. A few more searches against the domain name and I found blog and forum posts by previous customers who had either never received their goods but still had been charged for them or the goods they had received were fake!
When I informed my better half of my investigations she replied but they’re on the 1st page of Google for the brand name. Indeed they were. The site, which was just registered a few months before December was sitting at the very top of the page for a rather heavily searched keyword term. The site in question had used Google’s Paid Advertising feature to sit atop of the pile – it obviously hadn’t been checked by Google to see if it was genuine or not! Or if it had – it slipped through the net, such is the perfection on some counterfeit sites it makes them difficult to tell from the real thing.
Then, just last week, she received a text from a family member claiming they’d found the same boots again at bargain price. This time, she knew exactly what to do and an online purchase of counterfeit goods, or worse, was averted.
This is why it’s good to hear about the work of the UK Metropolitan Police Central e-Crime Unit. So far, the e-Crime Unit has shut down more than 2,000 fake online stores – many with .co.uk domains.
With the christmas shopping period well underway, it’s always best to be cautious when you come across a website selling products at a bargain price. Do a little bit of homework, to see if they’re genuine or not. If you’re unsure, then don’t proceed with the transaction.
Remember, If it’s too good to be true, it probably is!