In this digital age where new online marketplaces crop up every now and then, it might be difficult to isolate genuine from the fake ones. These fake sites, copy their design elements and look and feel from famous websites, to fool the untrained eyes of a layman. The names of such websites might seem familiar to you like
- flipkart.dhamaka-offers.com
- flipkart-bigbillion-sale.com
- flipkart-deals.in
- indiadeals.co.in
- bharatdeals.co.in
- Fake website: Payment without any user details
How does the fraud work?
These websites have deals that are too good to be true. Seeing the lucrative prices, customer fails to pay attention to tiny details that distinguish genuine from fake.
Since they never plan to ship the item, they would often skip registration and address collection process or have them optional (duh?). They would directly take visitors to payment page where they could dupe people to pay by debit/credit card, UPI or mobile wallets.
What can you do to protect yourself?
- Double check the name of the website. Do not go by the appearance of the websites. Trusted brands would almost never user any other domain except their main ones like flipkart.com, amazon.in, paytm.com etc.
- Look for HTTPS in the address bar of your browser. All of the secure marketplaces are HTTPS-enabled and would have a padlock symbol besides the URL.
- Look for several ways to contact the company (phone, email, live chat, address) and try them out.
- Do NOT fall for too good to be true deals. If it is too good to be true it often it is.