Chinese network behind one of world’s ‘largest online scams’: Vast web of fake shops touting designer brands took money and personal details from 800,000 people in Europe and US, data suggests ( www.theguardian.com )

A trove of data examined by experts indicates the operation is highly organised, technically savvy – and ongoing.

Operating on an industrial scale, programmers have created tens of thousands of fake web shops offering discounted goods from Dior, Nike, Lacoste, Hugo Boss, Versace and Prada, as well as many other premium brands.

Published in multiple languages from English to German, French, Spanish, Swedish and Italian, the websites appear to have been set up to lure shoppers into parting with money and sensitive personal data.

However, the sites have no connection to the brands they claim to sell and in most cases consumers who spoke about their experience said they received no items.

abbadon420 ,

This is why i dont trust the likes of aliexpress and temu. Well, it's one of the reasons

SSUPII ,

I got banned from Aliexpress for refusing to provide a phone number to a web page fully in chinese, and they didn't specify why I needed to despite them claiming a phone number isn't necessary to order

h3ndrik ,

It's a shame that nowadays everything "needs" a phone number. I just put in a proper prefix code and then all zeroes as a number if some company forces me to. That works for some of the websites. Some stores even print that on a shipping label. So it might supposedly be there for a reason. But I've never heard this helps if a parcel gets lost or something. They won't call anyways and the real reason is they can store it in some database and depending on the exact business do all kinds of other stuff with it.

HubertManne ,
@HubertManne@kbin.social avatar

Ain't nothing but a phone number to me, and I can find all unseemly manner of use for it.

Fermion ,

I usually look up the number for something like an ftc or fbi tipline if a website absolutely forces putting in personal info.

SSUPII ,

Where I live they always call because we don't have mail boxes, so they have to give the parcel personally and they call to see if you are home. If you aren't they don't ship it to you that day.

h3ndrik ,

Seems in this case they got own domains and independent stores.

And Aliexpress and Temu are very different. Aliexpress seems to be a halfway decent platform. Never had any major issues with them, except what's to be expected when importing stuff from China. I think it's very similar to ordering the same thing on eBay.

Temu isn't. That platform is made to harvest data and prey on their "customers".

And I can't comment on Wish. I haven't been interested in cheap crap.

Frederic ,

I have bought hundreds of stuff on AE, it's ok, especially for stuff that are less than $10 that local sellers sell for like $40 for the exact same thing. I got some items in less than a week in Caanda.

abbadon420 ,

I also bought some spare parts from AE, because they were literally nowhere else to be found except for other, more shady chinese websites. I would get spam mails from AE for months though. They'd send it from a different email adress everytime. Multiple mails per day that were unblockable.

So yeah, it s a legit business, but it's not a good business. Might be worse than amazon.

skullgiver ,
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

In my experience, the AE customer support is quite customer friendly in its business. I don't trust these stores for anything important, but when I need cheap shit, I tend to use AE to buy it from the source rather than spend three times as much on a local drop shipper.

shinratdr ,
@shinratdr@lemmy.ca avatar

AliExpress isn’t the problem here. This is fake Shopify sites spun up and down in a matter of days that only exist to harvest info and payment. I’ve placed dozens of AliExpress orders, I always get what I ordered even from new stores.

Hegar ,
@Hegar@kbin.social avatar

the operation is highly organised, technically savvy

Of course an operation this sophisticated targets people looking to buying luxury brands for cheap, that sounds like an ideal mark.

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