BEWARE! That Big Discount On Shopping Websites This Festive Season Can Make You A Cyber Crime Victim

NEW DELHI: As leading e-commerce platforms are gearing up for record sales during the festive season, cyber criminals have made multiple fake and malicious e-commerce websites. To cheat people they are selling anything from smartphone accessories to expensive watches.

Police said social media advertising tools are being misused to target people.

Wellbuymall.com is one such portal that has duped thousands of Indian users. The portal, which no longer exists, duped customers into purchasing technology products, only to vanish once orders were placed and money was received.

Sujeet Verma, a victim of cyber fraud, wrote on scamadviser.com, “I ordered and paid online but received no answer and they did not deliver the item. They are FRAUD.”

Another consumer, Sunil Gupta, stated, “I ordered an SSD (solid-state drive) and paid online. This website is a scam, yet it is endorsed by Facebook, and all adverts appear on my Facebook account. There were no responses from the website after I paid.”

Ayush, a user from Gurgaon, recently ordered a mini-pocket charger for cellphones for Rs 1,668, only to discover that his shipment will never arrive. He has now filed a case with the Gurguram Police Cyber Crime Cell against the e-commerce website.

The URL wellbuymall.com currently redirects users to a Chinese notice that reads: Site Not Found. Your request was unable to locate the associated webpage on the web server!”

The procedure is straightforward: the marketer opens a Facebook Page/Profile and begins selling through their Page on the social media site, redirecting consumers to their portal.

Once they receive payment for their orders, they delay in shipping the products, and by the time Facebook completes its feedback process to determine whether the advertiser is legitimate or a scam, the fraudsters have made quick money and shut down their operations once Facebook declares them cyber offenders and treats them as “unhealthy.”

According to cyber specialists, the Facebook process of gathering user feedback and determining the “health” of the advertiser’s Page takes approximately a month – a long enough time for cyber criminals to defraud people and depart.

“Facebook has a slow customer feedback process to declare an advertiser ‘not fit’ and act on the advertiser as part of its terms and conditions. Fraudsters take advantage of this and con innocent Indians before they are declared ‘unhealthy’ and blocked on Facebook and Instagram Pages,” independent cyber security researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia told IANS. He stated that these con artists pay small amounts of money to market their products on Facebook Pages, portray bogus and low-cost Chinese products as legitimate on their e-commerce portals, and deceive people.

As India prepares for a record festive season, several bogus e-commerce sites are now active, with sales expected to reach $9.2 billion, up 42 percent (year-over-year) from the estimated $6.5 billion in festive month sales in 2020.

It’s expected that $6.4 billion in online transactions will take place in the first week (October 3–10), accounting for around 70% of the festive month’s total online sales.

“The best way to avoid falling prey to such phoney e-commerce platforms is to trust the big names like Flipkart, Amazon, and others, and shop online through them,” Rajaharia added.

Follow The420.in on

 Telegram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube