Dubious online shops take your money and your data, but you never see the promised goods. In order to better protect customers, the NRW consumer advice center has now introduced a fake shop finder. Here you can easily check whether it is a reputable online retailer.
NRW consumer advice center presents Fake Shop Finder
Some dubious online shops can be recognized at first glance, others are much more professional. In order to better protect customers from fraud, the NRW consumer advice center now has one Fake Shop Finder presented.
Users only have to enter the Internet address of the respective shop in the fake shop finder. The tool then looks for characteristics that indicate fraudulent intentions could. The result is on the one hand in the form of a traffic light, on the other hand also broken down in detail. Whether an online shop is likely to be reputable or not can be seen at a glance.
Among other things, the consumer advice center NRW uses one for its fake shop finder List of known fake shops, but also relies on its own domain database. Ratings from the TrustedShops portal are included in the rating. A green traffic light indicates seriousness, a yellow one for abnormalities and a red one to keep your hands off the store.
Since fake shops often only exist for a few weeks or months, the age of the domain is also taken into account. There are more to come technical, linguistic and structural features. A proper imprint and a publicly stated sales tax ID are positive signals (source: Verbraucherzentrale NRW).
How to protect yourself with online banking:
Fake shops: PS5 scammers also targeted
The fake shop finder also examines whether the offered items extremely cheap are for sale. For products that are actually sold out or are currently difficult to get – like a PlayStation 5 – another warning signal applies. This is also the case when shops display a product countdown that is supposed to suggest that availability is decreasing rapidly.