For a long while I’ve been tracking an electronic goods fraud website that pops up every few weeks (or months) under different names. Takes payment via BACS only and then disappears without sending out any of the items that people ordered.
During this investigation another website popped up with a similar method but seemingly run by a different person or group (probably not from the UK; unlike the other scam)….
15th April 2016 – Later in the day: The domain is now showing a GoDaddy holding page.
25th April 2016: The website is now showing a holding page and won’t allow orders to be placed.
22nd April 2016:
A new site based on the same template is back – this time using blackmarkt.de. Code still references heavily to shopzoneltd.com so no doubt it is the same people behind this new website.
This website is hosted at GoDaddy and the domain is registered with GoDaddy under the following details:
Registrant Name: Jesse Smith
Registrant Street: Regeringsgatan 17
Registrant City: Stockholm
Registrant Postal Code: 11153
Registrant Country: SE
Registrant Phone: +46.8247162
Registrant Email: smithjesse412@gmail.com
Now the above information interests me. The e-mail address used matches a username on a PresaShop forum. PrestaShop is the software that the scam website is built upon! This means that either they have leaked / used their real name or have setup an entire persona for this scam and follow through with this persona on help forums too.
Payment is asked to be sent to the following account:
– Name of account owner DIDINA MARIETA ANTON
– Include these details IBAN: IT18P0760105138240269240272
Account Number: 240269240272, Swift/Bic : BPPIITRRXXX
– Bank name Poste Italiane SPA, Viale Europa 175, 00144, Roma, Italy
Victim Count:
Between launch and 5pm 22nd April 2016: 6 people.
Update 19th April 2016:
The shopzoneltd.com website is now giving a 404 error
Update 12th April 2016:
Some time in the past few days the shopzoneltd.com site started accepting bank transfers. I presume this is because nobody placed an order using BitCoin due to how complex it is to use.
Original Website:
shopzoneltd.com (hosting account username of shopzbzb) – seems to only accept payment via Bitcoin and the site was only registered on 11th February 2016.
The “About us” content seems to have been copy and pasted word for word from laptopsdirect.co.uk.
thecomputerperson 