Online Scams Evolving
John Pliniussen ventured online two years ago to purchase what he thought was a bur-berry scarf as a gift. Instead, he paid good money for a cheap knockoff that he could neither return nor give away.
"You know it`s the photo of the real product, but then you get it ... and you compare it to an actual product and you can see the differences," recalled the professor of Internet commerce at the Queen`s University School of Business. "[Online retail scams] are much more sophisticated now than a couple of years ago ... some sites can set up like there have been a lot of consumers and it looks like their ratings are good, and then you end up with a questionable product."
Far from a rare occurrence, Mr. Pliniussen`s experience is becoming increasingly typical among online shoppers. As consumers avoid the mad rush of the mall by spending record sums online this holiday season, even experts in the online retail industry such as Mr. Pliniussen are falling victim to what has quickly become the most common form of fraud facing Canadians today.
"We have only seen that trend in the last couple years, but it has been climbing steadily I`d say for the last three years," said Staff-Sergeant Paul Proulx, the manager of the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) in North Bay, Ont. A joint venture of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Ontario Provincial Police and the Competition Bureau of Canada, the CAFC was founded in the early 1990s under the name `Phonebusters,` referring to the most common medium used by fraudsters at the time. But today, about 60% of the nearly quarter-million complaints logged by the CAFC each year are Internetbased, most having to do with buying dubious or counterfeit goods or services.
Read the full article here.
John Pliniussen ventured online two years ago to purchase what he thought was a bur-berry scarf as a gift. Instead, he paid good money for a cheap knockoff that he could neither return nor give away.
"You know it`s the photo of the real product, but then you get it ... and you compare it to an actual product and you can see the differences," recalled the professor of Internet commerce at the Queen`s University School of Business. "[Online retail scams] are much more sophisticated now than a couple of years ago ... some sites can set up like there have been a lot of consumers and it looks like their ratings are good, and then you end up with a questionable product."
Far from a rare occurrence, Mr. Pliniussen`s experience is becoming increasingly typical among online shoppers. As consumers avoid the mad rush of the mall by spending record sums online this holiday season, even experts in the online retail industry such as Mr. Pliniussen are falling victim to what has quickly become the most common form of fraud facing Canadians today.
"We have only seen that trend in the last couple years, but it has been climbing steadily I`d say for the last three years," said Staff-Sergeant Paul Proulx, the manager of the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) in North Bay, Ont. A joint venture of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Ontario Provincial Police and the Competition Bureau of Canada, the CAFC was founded in the early 1990s under the name `Phonebusters,` referring to the most common medium used by fraudsters at the time. But today, about 60% of the nearly quarter-million complaints logged by the CAFC each year are Internetbased, most having to do with buying dubious or counterfeit goods or services.
Read the full article here.