Hundreds of thousands of Europeans who wanted to buy branded clothes were duped. It’s one of the ‘biggest scams online’

More than 800,000 people in Europe and the US were duped when they tried to buy designer clothes and shoes from a network of fraudsters who claimed to operate a vast online shopping platform but were actually stealing shoppers’ personal data and money, according to an international investigation carried out by The Guardian, Die Zeit and Le Monde newspapers.

The journalistic investigation provides a rare glimpse into a mechanism described by Britain’s Chartered Trading Standards Institute as one of the biggest scams of its kind, with 76,000 fake websites created.

It is about a very well organized operation, very skilled from a technical point of view and, more seriously, which continues even today. The network is allegedly operated by scammers from China.

Operating on an industrial scale, the programmers have created tens of thousands of fake web stores offering discounted products from Dior, Nike, Lacoste, Hugo Boss, Versace and Prada, as well as many other big-name brands. Published in multiple languages, from English to German, French, Spanish, Swedish and Italian, the sites appear to have been created to trick shoppers into making online payments and revealing confidential personal data.

However, the sites in question have no connection to the brands they claim to sell, and in most cases, the consumers who spoke about their experience said they did not receive any of the products they ordered.

The first fake stores in this network appeared in 2015. More than 1 million “orders” were processed in the last three years alone. Not all payments were processed successfully, but the group allegedly attempted to embezzle up to 50 million euros during this period, according to the analysis. Many of the online stores have been abandoned, but a third of them – more than 22,500 – are still active, The Guardian warns.

To date, an estimated 800,000 people, almost all from Europe and the US, have entered email address, name, phone number, email and postal address details, and 476,000 of them have submitted details of their bank cards, including the three-digit security number.

“One of the biggest fake store online scams” in history

Katherine Hart, senior officer at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, described the operation as “one of the biggest fake shop online scams” she had seen. Scammers are often part of large criminal syndicates that harvest their victims’ personal information to use against them, according to Hart.

A group of IT experts would have developed a system for creating and launching semi-automatic websites, allowing a quick implementation, writes News.ro. The three publications suggest that at least 210 users have accessed the system since 2015. SR Labs consultant Matthias Marx described the model as “franchise-like”. He explained that “the core team is responsible for developing the software, implementing the backends and supporting the operation of the network, and the franchises manage the day-to-day operations of the fraudulent stores.”

The Guardian also presents a concrete case of a customer who was deceived. Christmas was just a few weeks away and Melanie Brown, 54, from Shropshire, England, was looking to buy a new purse. She Googled the image of a leather item from one of her favorite German designers, Rundholz. Immediately a website appeared offering the bag for 50% less than the usual price of £200. Added the product to the shopping cart.

After choosing the bag, she also bought dresses, blouses and jeans, ending up paying £1,200 for 15 items. “I was getting a lot for the money, so I thought it was worth it,” she said. But it was just a scam.

The scammers are part of a criminal network in China

For nearly a decade, a network operating out of China’s Fujian province used a single online platform to create tens of thousands of fake online stores. The products presented on these sites are sold by big brands, such as Paul Smith, Christian Dior or Clarks, but also by more niche names, but in great demand, such as Rixo and Stella McCartney. It’s not just clothes for sale – there are fake shops selling quality toys such as Playmobil and at least one selling lighting fixtures.

Interviews with defrauded people show that the fake sites were not created to sell counterfeit products, and most people did not receive anything in the mail.

A few received orders, but the items were not the ones ordered. A buyer in Germany bought a jacket and got cheap sunglasses. A British customer received a fake Cartier ring instead of a shirt, and another customer received an unbranded blue sweater instead of the Paul Smith one he had paid for.

Oddly enough, many of those who tried shopping online didn’t lose money. Either the bank blocked the payments or the fake store didn’t process them. However, all interviewees experienced the same thing: their personal data was stolen.

“Data can be more valuable than sales. If you get hold of someone’s card details, that information is essential to taking control of a bank account,” explained Stop Scams UK’s director of strategy and communications Simon Miller.

Online scams are a growing problem. In the first six months of 2023, there were 77,000 cases of fraudulent sales in the UK where payments for the purchase of goods were made but the products were not received – 43% more than in the same period of the year 2022.

US consumers lost nearly $8.8 billion to fraud in 2022, up 30% from a year earlier. Fake online shopping is the second most common scam.

Editor: Raul Nețoiu

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