Buying a forklift online I came across a well-organized fraud
Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2024 4:14 am
Forklift seller WhatsApp conversion
The surprise came when the user, after making the payment following the instructions indicated and confirming it to the supposed seller, after several hours (with the banks in Spain already closed) he told him to cancel the transfer because he had given him the wrong account number (what a mistake!). After several attempts to contact him by phone after reading the “bomb” message, it was impossible to locate him since he did not answer calls or WhatsApp messages.
Fortunately, the next day he managed to cancel the transfer and get his money back, however, if he had taken a little longer to cancel it, he might have lost the money.
On this occasion, an error by the “supposed seller” (he gave him the oman phone number data wrong account number) saved our protagonist from being the victim of fraud, but… beyond the fact that after the problem he gave no more signs of life, how could he have detected in advance that he was facing fraud?
The key was in the invoice they sent him. At first glance, for someone who is not very used to dealing with this type of documents, it seemed correct:
It was written in more or less correct Spanish (although with some spelling mistakes),
included date, invoice number, seller and buyer information, product details, price, quantity…
as well as other additional information such as instructions for formalizing the payment.
However, the following aspects of the invoice were striking:
It did not provide any type of tax information about the company.
The seller was supposedly Spanish, and yet the payment was to be made to an Italian bank account, with the beneficiary being a person whose name had nothing to do with that of the seller.
The alleged invoice included a tracking code for the order as well as a link to check the status of the order. If the purchase had not yet been completed, how come there was already a tracking code for the shipment?
Additionally, if you had checked the website of the supposed shipping and transport company, you would have quickly detected that everything was a hoax. Although at first glance it seemed like a legitimate website, after browsing it a bit you could see information that caught your attention. For example:
A message indicated that the telephone switchboard was out of order, making it impossible to contact them by phone. How strange!
If you tried to access the links for the Terms of Use, Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, they did not link to any content and redirected to the website's home page. The same went for the social media profiles. They didn't exist! The logos were there, but there was no profile for that company.
As was also indicated for the invoice, tax information or address were not provided anywhere on the website. This is very important!
However, to give the service more credibility, they included a text at the bottom of the home page that said “Our partners” and then several banners that redirected to well-known services such as Milanuncios, eBay, Idealista, Vibbo, coches.net and Fotocasa. In this way, the user who visited them would think that they were collaborating with them in some way, although the reality was quite different…
The surprise came when the user, after making the payment following the instructions indicated and confirming it to the supposed seller, after several hours (with the banks in Spain already closed) he told him to cancel the transfer because he had given him the wrong account number (what a mistake!). After several attempts to contact him by phone after reading the “bomb” message, it was impossible to locate him since he did not answer calls or WhatsApp messages.
Fortunately, the next day he managed to cancel the transfer and get his money back, however, if he had taken a little longer to cancel it, he might have lost the money.
On this occasion, an error by the “supposed seller” (he gave him the oman phone number data wrong account number) saved our protagonist from being the victim of fraud, but… beyond the fact that after the problem he gave no more signs of life, how could he have detected in advance that he was facing fraud?
The key was in the invoice they sent him. At first glance, for someone who is not very used to dealing with this type of documents, it seemed correct:
It was written in more or less correct Spanish (although with some spelling mistakes),
included date, invoice number, seller and buyer information, product details, price, quantity…
as well as other additional information such as instructions for formalizing the payment.
However, the following aspects of the invoice were striking:
It did not provide any type of tax information about the company.
The seller was supposedly Spanish, and yet the payment was to be made to an Italian bank account, with the beneficiary being a person whose name had nothing to do with that of the seller.
The alleged invoice included a tracking code for the order as well as a link to check the status of the order. If the purchase had not yet been completed, how come there was already a tracking code for the shipment?
Additionally, if you had checked the website of the supposed shipping and transport company, you would have quickly detected that everything was a hoax. Although at first glance it seemed like a legitimate website, after browsing it a bit you could see information that caught your attention. For example:
A message indicated that the telephone switchboard was out of order, making it impossible to contact them by phone. How strange!
If you tried to access the links for the Terms of Use, Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, they did not link to any content and redirected to the website's home page. The same went for the social media profiles. They didn't exist! The logos were there, but there was no profile for that company.
As was also indicated for the invoice, tax information or address were not provided anywhere on the website. This is very important!
However, to give the service more credibility, they included a text at the bottom of the home page that said “Our partners” and then several banners that redirected to well-known services such as Milanuncios, eBay, Idealista, Vibbo, coches.net and Fotocasa. In this way, the user who visited them would think that they were collaborating with them in some way, although the reality was quite different…