An Online shopping fashion ad appeared on my wifes phone (Facebook).
She saw a discounted dress Ideal for our daughter for her birthday.
I went on the site to order it, clicked on the item to buy and a message came up “nothing in your basket” return to site. Tried a few times - nothing.
None of the headings eg returns policy, shipping (Free) would work.
I think it might be a scam site. It is called " arielavenue.com"
has anyone encountered it?
A quick Google has bought this up …
Luckily you haven’t ‘paid’ for anything, always worth doing a quick check on reviews for a site…
As Ann says, google is your friend. I wouldn’t buy anything from a site I hadn’t researched first anyway. You might have been lucky judging by some reviews.
I’d take a couple of things out of this, First, Facebook is crap (well, we all know that, don’t we). They’re happy to target you with fraudulent ads and accept no responsibility (that’s when they’re not too busy destroying democracy). Secondly, I think your credit card company might give some protection in these cases, cool off period etc. It’s worth checking.
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Thanks, I became wary of this site, glad I didn’t buy anything .
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It would be a debit card so no protection, or PayPal . I thought I had smelled a rat . Thank you for your reply. My original thought was to alert others
I’d tried a Google search but nothing. As well as enquiring if others had used the site it was also to warn of a possible scam.
There’s quite a useful site which you can search for fraudulent sites.
https://www.signal-arnaques.com/fraudulent-website
Also do always remember to check the basics…is there an address, mentions legales, a Siret or Siren number? All the things that indicate it’s a bona-fide site
Yes looks like a scam site unfortunately.
In my experience Facebook give quite clever “we are not responsible”, for the sponsored sites that they themselves ( Facebook) advertise on their own site.
It is an example of how people use FB’s mass advertising… and targets individuals.
On Trust Pilot, people have reported ArielA for the same scam …
“Terrible company. Ordered a dress and paid for it and once the payment went through I noticed they had put in a fur coat which I DID NOT ORDER and they charged me $299.97. I have tried to contact them numerous times by email and no reply. I There is no number to call. Please can someone tell me what my next step is. I’m going into my Bank tmrw. I see this has happened to a few other people. I am fuming as this was my pension for the week!”
…
If you do a “Whois” … here are some details…
http://whois.domaintools.com/arielavenue.com
Their address is :
Registrant of arielavenue.com
6 Thornes Office Park Monckton Road,
Wakefield, West Yorkshire, WF2 7AN, GB
You could maybe bet that there is nothing there…
From the Whos is information there is a telephone number. +49.68416984300
A google search link gives several different companies that have been dotted around that business park in Wakefield…probably all once used scam sites.
Interestingly +49 is Germany…
Several different companies on one trading estate, that have a German number country code ???
If you google the number…several companies seem to have used it at one stage or another, and following leads…none of them seem good.
Thank you Glenn, very informative . Luckily, the site wouldn’t let me proceed with an order so had a lucky escape.