Bank of Lithuania warns against fake e-shops: how to identify them

“We note that with the increase in the volume of online commerce, the number of consumer reports about money transfers to online scammers is also increasing. However, it is possible to protect against them by quite simple means,” says Lina Staniulytė, representative of the Money Laundering Prevention Division of the Bank of Lithuania.
The Bank of Lithuania recommends that payment service users who purchase goods online pay attention to the following before transferring money:

• Web address. It is necessary to ensure that there are no grammatical errors in the name of the website or on the website itself, exchanged letters of well-known brands. It is advisable to pay attention to whether the website address does not end with the abbreviation .net or .org; these abbreviations are rarely used in e. store addresses. You need to check if the web address begins with the abbreviation https;
• methods of payment for goods or services. In electronic stores, we recommend paying for the goods through electronic banking, as in fictitious electronic stores. stores do not usually have this option. They often request that services or goods be paid for by bank transfer or money order. Care should also be taken when paying with credit or debit cards, as scammers try not only to cheat money, but also to extract important data, for example by asking for data to be entered multiple times. For this reason, unknown emails and social media ads should be treated with great caution. shops;
• website registration date. In most cases, fictitious websites are created relatively recently, which may not coincide with the history of the well-known brands that are supposedly represented on them. The registration date can be verified in the WHOIS database;
• Contact information. It is advisable to pay attention to the address, telephone number and email provided. Mostly fictional e. stores use shared email addresses (for example, ending in @ gmail.com, @ yahoo.com, @ yandex.com, etc.). Also, frequently clicking on the contact information link does not provide any information, but indicates that the customer will be contacted by the contacts specified by him;
• conditions of order, payment, delivery and return of goods, privacy policy (data protection). In most cases, it falsifies e. stores do not have these sections;
• prices of goods or services. If e. the prices of the services or goods offered in the store are suspiciously low or the discounts are high but short-lived (lasting a few hours), it is advisable to take a closer look at whether this store is genuine. The big discounts they offer in the short term are one way to attract customers;
• Customer feedback. In the public space, it is useful to look for the testimonials of other clients about e. store them and critically evaluate them.

If you have made a payment to the alleged seller’s account but have not received the goods or services, you suspect that you have been the victim of a crime, you should immediately contact law enforcement authorities and your payment service provider (bank, electronic money or payment institution), who must take all possible measures to trace the payment transaction and seek recovery. If they cannot be recovered, the payment service provider must, at the customer’s written request, provide all the information so that the customer can take legal action himself (contact the police, court).

The Bank of Lithuania also draws the attention of financial market participants to the important role they play in preventing various illegal activities in a timely and proper manner. Therefore, it is essential that they continuously improve and update their procedures for the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing, taking into account criminal typologies, trends, the development of new money laundering schemes, etc.

The Bank of Lithuania notes that this message is for informational purposes only. If consumers suspect that they have been the victim of a crime, we recommend that they contact the police.