More than a thousand fake websites purporting to sell Ugg boots, ghd hair straighteners and Tiffany & Co jewellery have been shut down by police.
Organised gangs are thought to make millions of pounds by scamming UK shoppers into buying goods that either never arrive, or are counterfeit. It was feared many Christmas shoppers would be ripped off by the sites and would also have their credit card details at risk of fraud.
Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie, of the Metropolitan Police’s e-Crime Unit, said: “Fraudsters target the victim’s desire to buy designer goods at reduced prices, particularly at this time of year.
“The risk begins when your desire to purchase blinds your judgment or leads you to illegal websites. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.”
The vast majority of the 1,219 scam websites were registered from Asia, despite their UK domain names, mostly using false or misleading details. This meant it was impossible for victims to complain about counterfeit items or goods not received – and it was also impossible for Trading Standards to take action.
Advertisement
The police worked in partnership with Nominet - the body responsible for UK domain name registrations – who were told to take down the .co.uk domain names.
Consumer Direct, the Government-funded advice service, has recieved 3,000 complaints this year about counterfeit items bought online.
Experts warned that shoppers should still be on their guard this Christmas. Keir McConomy of www.Compare-GHD.com, the comparison website, said: “It is incredibly difficult to stop these sites in their tracks. They are experts at re-creating themselves – and it is as simple as shifting a hyphen or changing the spelling of a word slightly, leaving thousands of possible combinations.
“Many of these 1,200 sites that have been shut down will appear again within a few days.”