Around 700 people were allegedly scammed between the end of November 2021 and mid-March 2022 while trying to buy a sofa on the Internet.
A rather attractive offer, very well placed in the search responses on Google Shopping, offered a convertible sofa at 360 euros sold by the company Vehrnex, reports
Numerama
.
For months, on Google Shopping, it was the Vehrnex site that appeared first when you typed “sofa bed”.
Only, here it is: the site was a scam, which made in all several hundred victims.
https://t.co/pIybGubpOZ
– Aurore Gayte (@A_gayte) May 4, 2022
Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent
By clicking on "
I ACCEPT
", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners
I ACCEPT
And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.
More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.
False customer service set up
Customers could be reassured about the reliability of the product by the many positive comments, both on Google Shopping where the company was highly ranked, and on Cdiscount or Trustpilot.
The seller's website, which is no longer accessible, was also reassuring.
The thugs had even set up a customer service.
A victim was able to talk to a woman, whose identity was certainly invented, who reassured her about the delivery times and assured her that the sofa would arrive soon.
Once the scam was discovered, the victims found themselves stranded.
According to
Numerama
, online sales platforms are partly responsible for the existence and visibility of these scams.
"
Fake reviews are an ever-evolving problem," Trustpilot said.
We work continuously to ensure that we take all possible action against manipulated comments on our site.
»
A scam targets the extras of a film shoot in Finistère
More than 100 people denounce a boat license scam in Golfe-Juan
Scam
Sold online
Google
Cdiscount
Scam
high tech