Scott said the company is taking action against the emerging numbers of fraudulent websites luring consumers to online fake shops.
Fake online stores have been sweeping social media channels such as Facebook recently with increased intensity, promising discounts beyond 80 percent on a broad variety of Scott bikes, according to the company. Sponsored ads lure potential customers to several fake shops, offering “too good to be true” deals. End consumers who place orders and make payments on such fraudulent websites will never receive the ordered goods.
Scott has been suing frauds for many years, but has undertaken a more intense legal action plan against providers of several domains now.
“As an innovative brand, Scott is facing legal issues with product piracy and fake suppliers since quite a time. This is not something which is new at all. What is new indeed is the emerging number of well-organized online fake shops with a criminal intent luring consumers to fraudulent websites which look quite authentic at first sight,” said Reto Aeschbacher, brand director of Scott.
Despite the fact that Scott is constantly chasing fake accounts, the frauds open new domains every week by simply changing URLs, but keeping the websites’ layouts and designs. This creates a flood of additional fraudulent websites.
How can consumers detect a fraudulent website? Ridiculously low prices for Scott bikes (up to 90 percent and cheaper) are one indication of a fake website. Furthermore, no distinction is made on such sites between bike models. In addition to that, a higher selling price is then crossed out quite often to emphasize the massively low price.
Scott would like to point out that it can only guarantee the originality of its products purchased through an official Scott dealer. Therefore, Scott recommends consumers to verify the origin of the products and reliability of the respective online supplier beforehand. Official Scott dealers can be found with the Scott Dealer Locator on the brand’s official website, Scott-sports.com.
Those with questions are being encouraged to call contact: jochen.haar@Scott-sports.com, bike marketing & PR manager,
Scott Sports.
