Ad scammers are targeting local restaurants now and platforms like Google are reaping the rewards.
Yesterday, technology blogger Cory Doctorow posted a thread about a local Thai restaurant in his neighbourhood called KIIN. He searched for their web site on Google to order some takeout.
But here's where things take a turn: the top search result which was an ad is fake. That ad goes to a site masquerading as the Thai restaurant to trick customers into ordering from them instead. Same name. Same logo. Similar URLs. Convincing images. It even uses basic SEO – it looks pretty legit to me.
And so Cory got duped. He placed an order on the fake site. The fake site then placed the order – in his name – with the real site, and marked up the prices by 15%.
He goes on to explain that the restaurant is clearly aware of the scam, as they contacted him within minutes to tell him they had cancelled the fraudster's order. Furthermore, he would need to cancel the payment to the fakesters with his credit card company, Amex. As it turns out, the scammers conveniently charged him twice.
But that's not all. The business phone number for the fake restaurant on the Amex bill is the phone number for Wix, the company that provides the scammer's website.
Quoting Cory:
How the actual FUCK did these obvious scammers get an Amex merchant account in the name of “KIINTHAILA” by after supplying the phone number for a website hosting company? What is Amex's [Know Your Customer] procedure? Do they even call the phone number?
And why the actual FUCK is Google Ads accepting these scam artists' ads for a business that they already have a knowledge box for?! Google KNOWS what the real KIIN restaurant is, and yet they are accepting payment to put a fake KIIN listing two slots ABOVE the real one.
There's NEVER just one ant. I guaran-fucking-tee you that these same creeps have 1,000 other fake Wix websites with 1,000 fake Amex merchant accounts for 1,000 REAL businesses, and that Google has sold them ads for every one of them.
Moral of the story: search for your brand, and check for fake sponsored links.
Images: Twitter / Cory Doctorow
