More than 800,000 people in Europe and the US appear to have been duped into sharing their card details and other sensitive personal data with a huge network of e-shop stores based in China.
In particular, an international investigation by the Guardian, Die Zeit and Le Monde newspapers reveals the workings of what the UK’s Chartered Trading Standards Institute described as one of the largest scams of its kind, with 76,000 fake e-shop websites set up.
The data examined by journalists and IT experts show that this network is highly organised, technically sound – and well underway.
The fraudulent developers created tens of thousands of fake online stores offering discounted products from Dior, Nike, Lacoste, Hugo Boss, Versace and Prada, as well as many other premium brands.
At the same time, the available languages from English to German, French, Spanish, Swedish and Italian that users can choose from on the sites do not in any way foreshadow that this is a scam.
However, the sites have no connection with the brands they claim to sell and in most cases consumers who spoke about their experience said they had not received any products.
Ozzy Osbourne wants to win an Oscar (video)
The network’s first fake e-shops appear to have been created in 2015. In the last three years alone, more than one million “orders” have been processed, according to the data analysis.
According to the data so far, the fraudsters behind this network have allegedly tried to grab up to 50 million euros during this period. Many of these e-shops have been taken down, but a third of them – more than 22,500 – are still in operation.
So far, an estimated 800,000 people, almost all of them in Europe and the US, have provided email addresses, and 476,000 of them have given out debit and credit card details, including their three-digit security number. All of them also gave their names, phone numbers, email and postal addresses to the fake network.
