Chinese scammers scammed more than 170,000 French Internet users with fake online sales sites

More than 170,000 French Internet users have been duped on the Internet, reveals a joint investigation by daily newspapers The world, Die Zeit And The Guardian. These scammers based in China organized nearly 76,000 fake online sales sites over four years with products displayed at knockdown prices to better lure victims.

Several tens of millions of euros stolen

Bringing together Europe and the United States, there would be more than 800,000 victims recorded for a total loss of several tens of millions of euros. How the scam works is simple: an Internet user searches for a product on the Web, then comes across a site that offers it at a favorable price. The purchase is made but, obviously, the item never arrives, while the account is debited.

These fake sites steal official images of items and reproduce the design of legitimate online sales platforms. This method is all the more pernicious as the pirates manage to rank well on search engines. The impact is therefore twofold since in addition to customers being robbed, the owners of real companies see their reputation tarnished. “They looted everything from us: images, product names, descriptions”testifies one of them, adding that “the prices have been halved”.

These honest owners are now having difficulty getting these copies closed, because “this is a procedure that will cost lawyer fees” and last over time. 22,500 fraudulent platforms are still online today, according to the journalistic investigation.

To avoid being fooled, you should be wary of overly attractive offers. Products supposedly sold at half price, for example, are suspicious and Chinese scammers rely on this method to trap Internet users. So be careful when you see sponsored sites appear at the top of search engine results. Pirates are indeed trying to position themselves as best as possible to appear legitimate.

If the method used by cybercriminals does not prevent you from being charged, consider using a single-use virtual credit card. This will prevent scammers from using it repeatedly to make numerous purchases. There are also platforms like ScamAdviser, which analyze the level of reliability of a site. Enter the URL of the online sales platform you are interested in to obtain its trust percentage, not forgetting browser extensions like McAfee WebAdvisor or Norton Safe Web which help identify fraudulent sites.

Our best advice remains to be very careful when shopping online, identify an anomaly in a site’s URL and avoid offers that are too good to be true. For example, a pair of sneakers sold for €50 instead of €190 should ring a bell.