Festive Season Sale Leads To Rise In Fake E-commerce Sites

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The festival season sale is going on all over the country, both online and offline. While everyone is buying from online retailers within the comfort of their home, there is a surge in the number of fake websites. Several malicious e-commerce platforms are duping buyers during this festive season sale. There is an increase in the sites that claim to see smartphone accessories and luxury watches among others.

 
Festive Season Sale Leads To Rise In Fake E-commerce Sites

Apparently, cyber authorities have come forward to protect online shoppers from falling prey to this situation. Mostly, these online scammers are using the Facebook ad network to dupe buyers looking out for offers.

 

Fake E-commerce Sites

One such portal that has conned hundreds of thousands of Indian users is wellbuymall.com. The portal has been taken down now but it has already conned buyers in the name of selling technology products. Once orders were placed and the money has been transferred, the site disappeared.

A cyber fraud victim, Sujeet Verma, took to scamadviser.com to post that he had placed an order and paid online but there is no response from wellbuymall.com. They did not deliver the order and they are fraud, added the victim.

Another victim, Sunil Gupta stated that he placed an order for an SSD and made the payment. However, the fraud website that was listed on Facebook ads did not respond after the same. Recently, a buyer Ayush from Gurgaon ordered a mini-pocket charger for smartphones priced at Rs. 1,668. Little did he know that he will not get the order delivered to him. The buyer registered a complaint at the Gurugram Police Cyber Crime Cell against the e-commerce website.

As the website has been taken down, the URL now shows a message in Chinese translating to "Site Not Found. Your request did not find the corresponding site in the web server!" These online scamsters follow a simple modus operandi. They just create a Facebook ad or profile and sell products via their page, which will attract buyers to their portal.

On placing the orders and making payments, these sites will delay the dispatch. Once Facebook completes the feedback process to know if the advertiser is a scam or legit, the scamsters make ample money and close their operations. By this time, Facebook will declare these sites as malicious.

As per cyber experts, it takes a month's time for Facebook to get user feedback and find out if an advertiser's page is genuine. This period is ample time for cyber scamsters to make quick money and flee. They pay meager amount to advertise their pooroducts via Facebook, display fake and cheap products on their e-commerce portals and dupe buyers.

This slow customer feedback process makes innocent buyers fall prey to these scamsters as the online fraudsters use this as an advantage before the social networking platform declares these sites as unhealthy and block them on Facebook and Instagram, added Rajshekhar Rajaharia, an independent cyber security researcher via IANS.

The only way that will keep unsuspecting buyers safe from these online scams and fake shopping websites is to trust the leading portals such as Amazon, Flipkart, Paytm Mall, etc.

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