Many people are familiar with the first part of Oscar Wilde’s quote, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” but are unfamiliar with the rest of the quote which is “that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”  I mention this because, as described in an article last month in the Wall Street Journal, scammers, many of them based in China are copying websites of companies large and small to lure people into buying their counterfeit products online.  In some instances, the scammers send poorly manufactured goods while in other instances, they do send anything, but merely steal the money from your credit card.

Creating a counterfeit website used to take talent, skill and, when done in countries where English is not the primary language, a working knowledge of English, but now with Artificial Intelligence these phony websites can be created easily at little cost and appear quite legitimate.  Often the scammers will merely steal images and videos from the legitimate companies’ websites and use them in their fake websites.   Once they have created the phony website, the scammers either pay search engines for a top position in a search engine search or are sufficiently sophisticated technologically to manipulate the algorithms used by search engines to pick sites to appear high in a search.

TIPS

While this is a problem for large companies, the phony websites selling counterfeit goods is, as described in the Wall Street Journal story, a particularly significant problem for smaller companies that cannot afford the technology to constantly be on the lookout for these websites selling knock-off goods.  Disgruntled customers not realizing that they have bought counterfeit goods often post negative reviews that hurt the businesses of the legitimate companies.

But how do we, as consumers know if a website is legitimate or not?  Sometimes it can be relatively easy when the URL of the website appears to have no connection to the name of the legitimate company, but other times the URL may appear legitimate.  Before buying anything online you should confirm that you are on the legitimate website.  Additionally, you can check the URL of the website you are considering with https://www.whois.com/whois/ which will tell you who owns the website you are considering.  If the website of the company you are considering shows that it is owned by someone in Nigeria, it is a good indication that it is a scam.

Finally, whenever you buy anything whether online or in a brick and mortar store, you should never use your debit card because the laws that protect you in regard to fraudulent purchases are not as protective as the laws that protect you when you use your credit card.

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