Random scam I recently fell victim to, as a warning: I was on Instagram or FB or something and saw an ad for a Cotopaxi sale. Looked good. I clicked. I went to something that looked exactly like the Cotopaxi website, but it was cotopaxi-us or something like that. I didn't notice. 1/ - ThreadSky

djsziff.bsky.social • 5 days ago

Random scam I recently fell victim to, as a warning: I was on Instagram or FB or something and saw an ad for a Cotopaxi sale. Looked good. I clicked. I went to something that looked exactly like the Cotopaxi website, but it was cotopaxi-us or something like that. I didn't notice.
1/

Comments

abeeinthebonnet.bsky.social•5 days ago

This is absolutely something I might fall for if the goods are just right and so is the price. Yikes. Thanks for sharing and glad nothing worse came of it.

scotusplaces.bsky.social•5 days ago

Also watch out for pirate F1 stuff. I have seen some very reasonable prices advertised on instagram at a weird but not entirely non-legit-sounding url, but I simply couldn't believe the prices were real when the same products were 5x the price at the regular F1 store.

caitesq.bsky.social•5 days ago

This scam is so common that Cotopaxi occasionally posts on its own Instagram account about it! I’m sorry they got you.

djsziff.bsky.social•5 days ago

I saw that too late! They have a list of fake sites! Mine was not on there but I told them about it and now it's down. Oh well. Amazing that this is so prevalent.

djsziff.bsky.social•5 days ago

I ordered a few things for less than $80. Not a huge purchase. They were all "on sale" for 80% off or something. So I figured... Why not? The payment page looked totally legit and I submitted and figured that was that.
But then the confirmation email came and it was shady. It was a gmail account.
2/

djsziff.bsky.social•5 days ago

Oops. So I tried to cancel, but of course neither the website nor the email had a place to cancel. So I tried to dispute the charge on my credit card. But I couldn't do that while it was "pending," so I waited a few days. Then I disputed the charge. I also emailed the gmail address saying I...
3/

djsziff.bsky.social•5 days ago

...wanted to cancel. That was maybe a mistake. Anyway, yesterday three things happened:
1. The seller refunded my money before the credit card dispute was resolved.
2. Someone signed up my email for 100s of websites, listservs, etc.
3. Someone in Greenville, SC bought a Macbook with my card.
4/

djsziff.bsky.social•5 days ago

Now, maybe that's a coincidence with the refund on the fake Cotopaxi order and the rest of it. But I doubt it. The Macbook plan was, apparently, to flood my inbox with spam so I wouldn't notice the Macbook purchase email. Thank you gmail for good filtering/organization!
5/

djsziff.bsky.social•5 days ago

I called Apple and reported/cancelled the Macbook order before it was shipped (and before it was charged to my card). I locked my card as well. (And I eventually got a new card). But before I did that (1) the guy changed the shipping on the Macbook to an address in Greenville, and (2)...
6/

djsziff.bsky.social•5 days ago

he tried to order a pizza from the Greenville Pizza Hut on my card. (That was blocked.) Anyway, seems like the address change was actually to a real address in Greenville? I can see it on a map!
End of the day: No harm. Just annoying. I got a new card number and no charges actually to me.
7/

kmce15.bsky.social•5 days ago

I really try to have a policy to never buy anything from IG or FB ads, but I've gotten fooled by some look alike shoe sites and received some very plastic fake shoes. Thanks for posting your cautionary tale.

johnf.bsky.social•5 days ago

Almost fell victim to this, but it was Kuhl. A friend sent me a legit looking link to a sale, but the prices felt too low so I went to their real website via google. Totally would have fallen for it if I hadn’t been looking for Kuhl clothing a week or two prior and knew the pricing.

rarobbins.bsky.social•5 days ago

I had to replace my card last month when I went on the wrong version of the Laura Geller website. I got all the way up to payment and then the site would not accept it. I still don’t know if it was an archived site or a scam but I decided not to chance it.

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