Police: This is how you recognize fraudulent fake shops

Christmas is approaching with giant strides. Many people make last-minute purchases in online shops under time pressure. Then you should take note of the following advice from the police.

The State Criminal Police Office of Lower Saxony warned some time ago about fake shops with which fraudsters want to take money from bargain hunters. The fake shops lure interested parties with noticeably cheap offers. An order is usually only possible against prepayment, but the promised goods will not be delivered. In most cases, the money is gone and the cyber gangsters can use the stolen customer data to carry out further frauds such as identity theft.

In the past year 2020, the police registered significantly more frauds with fake online shops than in the previous year: “The acts from January to October 2020 even exceeded the total registered figures for 2016 by a factor of six. Compared to the same period in the previous year, there was a drastic increase in fraud with fake shops, especially in the months of May and June. ”

This complicates the work of law enforcement agencies

Prosecution is difficult because the servers of the fake sites are often located abroad. The individual fake shops are only online for a relatively short time. The flow of money often does not flow directly to the perpetrator accounts, rather the fraudsters use so-called financial agents, who in part transfer the funds almost anonymously via various payment service providers and thus launder money, as the police explain the procedure.

The LKA advises: This is how you unmask fake shops

Pay attention to the language.

Numerous fake shops still have a problem with the German language. The quality of the language is neglected, especially on sub-pages in the shop, such as B. the terms and conditions, which are written in bad German or in another language.

Check the legal notice.

Use search engines like Google to find out more about the company name, person, address or telephone number. You may also find warning messages from other buyers, official bodies such as the police or consumer advice centers and quality seal operators. Map services (including Street View) can also provide an initial assessment. If a real online shop has been copied by the perpetrators and put on the Internet under a similar web address, it is possible that by searching, you will also discover the real website of the provider, on which warnings are already given about these fake shops. Occasionally, manufacturers themselves also provide information about reputable providers or fake sites, as the police explain.

Check the commercial register number and VAT ID:

At www.handelsregister.de you can at least check the existence of a given number free of charge. If the number is not assigned, this is an indication of a possible forgery. The same applies to the sales tax ID, which can be checked for validity at least at https://ust-id-pruefen.de/. Caution: Positive results do not mean that the shop is real. Fraudsters sometimes misuse such information from real sites.

Just give me a call.

If a number is assigned on the website, ask by phone. Many fake shops invent phone numbers that lead nowhere or are not switched at all. You may find additional phone numbers to contact in online phone books or using a search engine.

Don’t be fooled by the “s” in https.

The “s” only stands for an encrypted connection. The customer data you have entered will be transmitted securely. Many years ago, the corresponding certificates could only be obtained with a lot of effort and testing. These are now also offered free of charge and without an examination.

Be careful with prepayment.

If the shop suggests different payment methods with numerous logos and only the option of prepayment remains at the end of the ordering process – possibly to a bank account abroad – then you should not transfer the money to an unknown seller.

Does the web address match the product being sold?

Again and again, perpetrators reactivate old domain names that have already been canceled by other owners in order to be found more easily in search engines. Sold z. For example, a restaurant website for electronics items, you should be vigilant! Caution: The domain ending .de is not a sign that a website actually comes from Germany. The ending .de can be purchased anywhere in the world.

Do the cross-checking of quality seals.

Fraudsters like to use made-up seals of approval and customer ratings. Again and again, real logos are illegally displayed on the website. If a logo is available, you should click on it to be forwarded to the real page of the provider and to be able to double-check the current certificate. Another indication of a fake shop are fake customer ratings and opinions.

The tips above also apply to shops on trading platforms such as Amazon. If the seller there requests payment outside of the Amazon platform, you should stay away from it. Because the purchase is then not secured, and fraudsters can get your money and personal data via prepayment.

You can find detailed tips on fake shops here in the Internet crime guide of the LKA Lower Saxony.