Scams are legion on the Internetand we know that, as consumers, we often have to be on our guard if we want to avoid being bamboozled, one way or another. Today, we invite you to learn about a well-controlled scam that has claimed hundreds of victims in France.
A scam that would have caused at least 700 victims
As revealed our colleagues from Numerama, a seductive ad on Google claimed hundreds of victims. The advertisement in question offered convertible sofas with many similarities to brand name sofas, and the price of each individual sofa was approximately the 360 euros.
Unfortunately, said couch never makes it to its destinationand all buyers lose that money.
Where does this failure come from?
Numerama’s investigation counts at least 700 victims, and reveals a failure in Google referencing. Customers ordered these sofas from the Vehrnex site, and received a confirmation SMS in stride. Following numerous notices denouncing illegal practices, the site is no longer accessible. However, the latter continued to claim many victims between November 2021 and March 2022.
How to explain that Google continued to reference the site so well for so many months? According to our colleagues, advertisers are not required to identify themselves to promote themselves on Google Shopping. In addition, the Vehrnex site allowed payment by credit card, indicating that the site had previously acquired a electronic payment contract for distance selling. Following these reports, Google declared to Numerama to take “very seriously dishonest business practices”. The company would also like “extend identity verification to all advertisers”. Note, moreover, that Vehrnex website would also have been registered as a reseller on the marketplace by CDiscountwhich only increased the visibility of the latter, and that the first “buyer” opinions found on the internet were in fact fake, which explained that they had had a very good experience as a consumer.
A well-oiled scam of this fact, which undermined the budget of many people. And if you want to know which scam linked to the Netflix platform has caused many victims in France in previous months, you can check our previous article on the subject.
