SCOTT is taking action against the emerging numbers of fraudulent websites luring consumers to online fake shops. Fake online stores have been sweeping social media channels such as Facebook recently with increased intensity, promising discounts beyond 80% on a broad variety of SCOTT bikes.
The company notes that sponsored ads lure potential customers to several fake shops, offering “too good to be true” deals. End consumers who place orders and make payments on such fraudulent websites will never receive the ordered goods. SCOTT has been suing frauds for many years, but has undertaken a more intense legal action plan against providers of several domains now.
“As an innovative brand, SCOTT is facing legal issues with product piracy and fake suppliers for quite a time,” says Reto Aeschbacher, Brand Director of SCOTT. “This is not something which is new at all. What is new indeed is the emerging number of well-organized online fake shops with a criminal intent luring consumers to fraudulent websites which look quite authentic at first sight.”
Despite the fact that SCOTT is constantly chasing fake accounts, the frauds open new domains every week by simply changing URLs but keeping the websites’ layouts and designs. This creates a flood of additional fraudulent websites.
With imagery using up-to-date key visuals, a ‘real’ SCOTT logo, and deals which are too good to be true, how can consumers detect a fraudulent website? The company notes that ‘Ridiculously low prices for SCOTT bikes (up to 90% and cheaper) are one indication for a fake website. Furthermore, no distinction is made on such sites between bike models. In addition to that, a higher selling price is then crossed out quite often to emphasize the massively low price.’
SCOTT would like to point out that it can only guarantee the originality of its products purchased through an official SCOTT dealer. Therefore, SCOTT recommends consumers to verify the origin of the products and reliability of the respective online supplier beforehand. Official SCOTT dealers can be found with the SCOTT Dealer Locator on the brand’s official website.
