Been scammed. Fake online store.

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Hi,

My wife (and I) has been scammed by a fake online store that pretends to sell playground furnitures now in sale. The offers are too good to be true but she gave it a try. in fact, I should’ve learned to say NO or WAIT even if it’s frustrating her. Instead, she was pressuring me for an answer and I said give it a go. My fault.

She went there by an online Facebook ad, that’s why I wasn’t too concerned.
The domain name has been registered 3 days ago at godaddy.
The street address on the contact page is imaginary.

I did a new fake order to see: the credit card for payment must be a checksum-valid one, so I used a sample one and here’s the message displayed to all people that have been scammed :



Ah and unlegit PayPal logos despite no PayPal checkout available.

I told her to call Visa center after that to cancel the card so no future transaction could be done, and to monitor the cc transactions to get a refund if the card has been used.

I reported to PayPal and Facebook, now what?
 
Not much else you can do. Facebook will get on them soon enough, and PayPal will do nothing.

You've cut off the only line they have to hit her money, so that's it.
 
I reported to cloudflare too. I hope any party will not endorse illegal activities and manage to get the site shut down by authorities ?

And maybe get the name that used go daddy.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: Superflan
She went there by an online Facebook ad, that’s why I wasn’t too concerned.

Since when does an ad appearing on Facebook give it any legitimacy?
 
Originally Posted By: Bottom_Feeder
Originally Posted By: Superflan
She went there by an online Facebook ad, that’s why I wasn’t too concerned.

Since when does an ad appearing on Facebook give it any legitimacy?


I run the other way if see a FB ad.
 
Clicking on *anything* on Facebook that was not a composed comment by someone in your Friends List is a mistake. By "composed comment" I'm talking about something a user has actually written, not something they re-posted from elsewhere. Even commenting or liking a re-posted item can lead to problems; the originating site gets all kinds of information about you when you do that that they can use to spam you or hijack your FB account (that's how people who all of a sudden want you to re-friend them got hijacked in the first place. And don't re-friend them).

Most of these are specifically crafted to create an emotional response from you. Just ignore it; we all know you hate to see starving children and that you like cute kittens and you agree that taxes are too high.

For commercial ads, instead of clicking on a link in FB, copy and paste the url, and strip out everything except the web address ( www something dotcom ) and paste that into your browser to go to the site, if you trust it. If you're unsure, Google that url to see if it's got any shady reputation. And don't just read the first page of a Google search, dig a bit and learn something.

When I Google "patioplaygrounds [no space] .com all I get is a single top result Google ad, and no links to that url on the first page result. That right there is suspicious, since you can pay to get that ad there, but no-one buys from them? And why is she buying stuff from a smartphone (if she is, maybe you just used yours to vet the site)?

"... intercepted by risk control department ..."? That should be a Red Flag, even if it's fake. If someone then entered a second card instead of running away, they need some training.
 
Originally Posted By: Johnny2Bad
"... intercepted by risk control department ..."? That should be a Red Flag, even if it's fake. If someone then entered a second card instead of running away, they need some training.


That’s when I understood what was plotted. I know that electronic credit cards transactions never issues more than yes or no. I jumped of my chair, saying “scammed! Sh!!”
 
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