It’s the year of scams it seems, and as if the AusPost scam texts we’ve all been receiving weren’t enough, there’s now copycat websites ready to scam ya when you try to shop with some of your fave brands.
The national consumer watchdog has been receiving an increase in reports of imposter websites for a number of really popular Australian brands, and now they’re warning Aussie shoppers that if there’s a deal that seems too good to be true — it probably is.
The reports show that imitation websites for brands like Gorman, Peter Alexander and RM Williams are being advertised on social media as a way to draw in customers.
These fake sites are claiming to sell the same products as all your fave Aussie brands, but at a significantly discounted price, but those who have bought from these websites receive something that was entirely different to what they ordered, or nothing at all.
As per The Sydney Morning Herald, one site which was claiming to be PJ giant, Peter Alexander, had exactly the same branding and text on its pages, including on the “About Peter” page, as the real deal.
But there is one pretty major difference that you can look for to sniff out these scams.
The page URL.
Whilst the fake Peter Alexander site — which is advertising goods for 80% off retail price — has all the on-page content of the real thing, the URL doesn’t feature the brands name at all.
A spokesperson for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission told The Sydney Morning Herald that they had received reports of websites using sophisticated designs and layouts, possibly stolen logos, .com.au domain names and even stolen ABNs.
“Many of these websites offer luxury items such as popular brands of clothing, jewellery and electronics at very low prices,” they told the publication.
“Sometimes you will receive the item you paid for, but they will be fake. Other times you will receive nothing at all.”
The spokesperson said the second way you can tell if it’s a scam website will be if the payment options are limited, and the site is trying to force customers to pay using a card rather than offering a secure payment option like PayPal.
Melbourne-based fashion brand Gorman posted a warning on its social media after it learned customers were scammed by one of these fake websites.
“We are deeply heartbroken to hear some of our customers have unknowingly fallen victim to a scam website masquerading as our company,” the brand posted to their Instagram page earlier this month.
“We want to assure all our customers that we are actively taking measures to combat these deceptive websites and have been working diligently to have them shut down.”
A spokesperson for Meta (AKA Facebook and Instagram), confirmed to The Sydney Morning Herald that the ads for the fake Peter Alexander website had been removed from all its sites and a wider investigation has been launched by the platform.
“We know that scammers can use sophisticated methods to contact people online and we use a combination of automated systems and people to stop and remove these scams,” the Meta spokesperson told the publication.
As an avid peruser (and purchaser) of goods via social media apps, I’ll be keeping my eye on the URLs in an effort to keep my cash and keep the scammers at bay — wish me luck.
