With the advent of artificial intelligence, the number of fraudulent e-shops is increasing. They often also focus on fashion.
Dozens of fraudulent domestic e-shops offering significant discounts began to appear on the internet at the turn of the year. They enticed customers with images of stylish clothing and fashion accessories, which, as it turned out, were created using artificial intelligence. After payment, however, people usually did not receive any goods. How to protect yourself from fraudulent e-shops?
A coordinated massive campaign, making use of a large number of similar pages actively promoted on social networks, dominated the domestic internet in recent weeks. The main theme of the campaign was the promotion of a series of e-shops, which primarily highlighted various discount actions. Before Christmas, the content was focused on Black Friday, followed by Christmas offers and discounts and in January mainly New Year's sales. Their content was created using AI services to give the images and texts a sense of credibility and at the same time catch the eye at first glance.
Swapping of well-known brands or similar names
The pages of fraudulent e-shops were named according to a similar pattern: between the individual names of the shops, the following phrases appeared, for example - Norva Prague, Perla Prague, Sarah Prague, Jana Prague, Moravec Brno, Ateliér Olomouc, Fialová Prague, Velora Prague, Krasa Fashion, Boutique Zlata Brno, Jemna Prague or Prague Chic.
During the Christmas season two years ago, security companies in our country identified more than 80 thousand fake online stores in total. Fraudulent pages mimicking Calzedonia, Tezenis, Zara, Puma or Roxy appeared, for example.
How can one protect oneself against such offers?
Scammers often use addresses similar to original stores, differing perhaps in just one letter. Contact details are often missing from such e-shops. They usually contain only a general e-mail, no physical address or phone number. The complaint rules then usually state that it is necessary to contact by e-mail.
As the Czech Trade Inspection points out, it may also be an operator who is based outside the territory of the European Union and that the required legal information, such as business conditions, is not provided on its website.
The content of the mentioned terms or other provided information may grossly contradict domestic legal regulations. The inspection also often registers a high number of complaints and such traders. They also publish an overview on their websites.
AI and social networks
But beware! Users also face other pitfalls. Many websites already have chat AI assistants simulating real customer service, functional shopping carts, email confirmations, and fake shipment tracking pages. Even for an experienced user, it is relatively difficult to detect scams. If some sides are managed to shut down, new variants will immediately appear. Automated infrastructure allows thousands of fraudulent messages and domains to be created.
Moreover, there are many sponsored posts on Facebook that try to attract users and persuade them to visit a website. Although most Facebook pages linking to fraudulent e-shops have minimal content, some have thousands of fans and dozens or even hundreds of reactions to posts. Another danger is lurking here. Social networks' algorithms often promote the spread of scams. If a user accidentally clicks on a dangerous post, similar scams will start appearing on their wall.
Scam Transportation and Other Tricks
Scam text messages and emails from transporters are also very common.
"The most common threat are phishing attacks - fraudulent messages that pretend to be legitimate communications from trusted companies. Attackers most often impersonate DHL, DPD or Czech Post and perfectly mimic their communication including logos and graphics," explained Patrik Žák, a cybersecurity specialist at LP-Life.
The expert therefore also advises to carefully check the sender's email address. For example, official communication from DHL exclusively contains endings such as dhl.com, dpdhl.com or dhl.cz.
"If you're not sure, rather visit the official courier's website and enter the tracking number manually. Never click directly on the links in messages. Watch out for urgent tone - fraudsters often create urgency with words like immediately or within 24 hours."
delivers.
Sometimes this is also accompanied by online skimming, i.e., the theft of card information directly from a targeted e-shop. Attackers thus get into a legitimate shop, install malicious code, and this collects the card numbers of all customers.
Sources: author's article, own querying, CTK, Czech Trade Inspection
