A rogue website advertising widely on Facebook offered ‘closing down’ discounts of up to 80% despite only appearing in November, Which? has found.
In a sponsored post on the Meta-owned platform, a scammer posing as the owner of a boutique called ‘Thompson Oxford’ claims they have ‘a heavy heart and tears in my eyes’ as ‘after many years’ their store cannot compete financially with larger stores.
But when Which? looked at its website, we found it was registered a month ago.
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Fake closing down sale scam
The Facebook advert links to a website registered on 17 November but which states in its ‘About Us’ section: ‘We have been offering our customers the best service for more than 30 years.’
The fraudulent advert and site are similar to other shopping scams we’ve seen this year, which pull on victims’ heartstrings with ‘sob stories’ and fake closing down sales.
It comes as Which? warns shoppers to be careful and check unfamiliar sites’ claims before making purchases this festive period – with more than £13 million stolen via purchase scams in the same period last year.
The Facebook profile and linked website showed clear signs of being a scam. The website and Facebook page registered on 17 November but claim to have been in business ‘for more than 30 years’ and we even found that the images on the product listings come from other retailers’ websites.
We also found there is no registered business address stated, and the company name is not registered on UK Companies House.
Which? contacted the Thompson Oxford website via email but received no response.
We reported the Facebook advert and profile to Meta, and the website to its domain registrar.
When we first spotted the scam, Thompson Oxford had more than 100 active adverts on Meta platforms. The adverts and profile now appear to have been removed, though it’s unclear whether this was done by Meta or the scammers themselves.
The website remains live at the time of writing.
How to spot a shopping scam
- Unrealistically low prices, so always check that the price of the item is consistent with other websites.
- Being promoted on a recently created website without a privacy policy, postal address or an ‘about us’ page. Use a domain checker like who.is to check when the website was created, a newly created website should ring alarm bells.
- Being posted from a newly created social media account.
- Bad reviews can be a giveaway, but make sure you know the signs of a fake review.
- An impersonated URL – check that the website URL is that of the official brand. It will only have one official website.