Online fraud – 24automove.com a genuine UK company?

A friend who lives in mainland Europe sent me am email today asking about a “London” based company that was going to ship car to him. He was supposed to pay 50% of the cost of the car and the remaining 50% on delivery, the company in question is called 24automove.com . I was to have a quick look at the company just to ensure its a reputable company. The moment I got to the homepage on 24automove.com I could tell it cannot be anything but a fraudulent company, for a start, a company that claimed it has been trading since 1954 does not even have a telephone number.

It claimed to have its head office in UK, a quick search at companies house show the company with the registration number on its website (MC249800) does not exist, that is not even the format of a UK company registration number. If has a registration page which was supposed to be secured by SSL, no padlock appears when you try registering.

I did a whois on the domain name, there was an interesting result, website was registered only a few months ago, its hosted on a Romanian server. This website is definitely a fraud.
If you come across this website, you want to run a mile from them, don’t give your money to them, here is and email send by one of the fraudsters behind the site:

————————
Hello,
The payment has to be sent to the shipping company using bank
transfer.After the deposit is sent to them the shipping will start.
When you get the car you will have 5 days to test it…If you like the
car you can keep it and pay the rest of the money.
If you don’t like the car you can tell them to take it back and they
will give you a full refound.Also they can deliver the car at any
address you want.
If you are ready to start this transaction go to
http://24automove.com/ check the shipping company web site and let me
know after that so I can start the transaction, after the transaction
is started you will receive all details about the payment and
shipping.
You can use this link to register with them : http://24automove.com/register.php
—————————————–

Some clarifications I got from the friend who almost use them follows:

I found them one on a popular German car selling site www.mobile.de
and also on polish www.otomoto.pl
On mobile.de initial contact is with 999pkw@gmail.com which was later changed.

But on both site the story if this
1, You’ll get offered a car at a price far below what any other is offering
2, You get told the story that they had to move to the UK an as such
the left-hand steering car is not convenient
3, They send you a picture of the car
4, You are given a car moving company to register with through which
the transaction can be completed.
5, They offer you 50% payment up front after which the car will be
brought to you.
6, 5 or 6 day test driving of the car after which if you like it you
pay the rest of the fee or you call the auto move company to came and
take it back and you will be fully refunded.

I am sure they are using other car selling sites also to defraud others.

I found other names which they have used on this site

http://escrow-fraud.com/index.php?page=gallery&layout=61

They always use the same professional looking web page but with different names

Once you’ve paid they just take the site of line and you are left hanging.

I hope this helps.

UK Business Forum where Psychology meets Business – BizFace

BizFace – UK Business Forum

No long ago, the success of a website is measured by the number of hits to the site, now that websites have evolved from being an object of curiosity and tools or nerds to an essential business tool, metric for measuring the success otherwise of a website has moved on from hits which basically just counts the numbers of visitors to a particular page or website to a much more comprehensive sets of yardsticks, including how long visitors stay or web page, the actions they perform and so on.
Information in the metrics used to determine the success of a website today are absolutely crucial to the success of a site, just think of the consequences of spending thousands of pounds on PPC to drive traffic to a website where visitors promptly exit without buying the good or services the site sells.

Some of the several facets of Psychology includes analysing and predicts human behaviour, whether on a queues at a football match or the action they are likely to take if a call to action button on a web site is placed on the right of a page as oppose to being placed on the left side of the page. BizFace UK business forums discusses issues relating to business and Psychology, participating in a forum like BizFace will give you a better understanding of your customer as you bounce ideas with other forum members who have been through what you are currently experiencing in your business.

BizFace Powered buy Experts

Aside from being one of the very few if not the only UK business forum where Psychological aspect of business is the main focus, BizFace actually have resident Psychologies, who are distinguished experts in their field. They are able to share their personal experience and option as an expert with you at BizFace free of charge.
Another unique thing about BizFace you will find pleasantly surprising is that membership is free. To join you just need to visit their website and register.

Win a shopping cart worth £199

One of the ways some online traders have been combating the recession is through additional orders pouring in from new customers outside UK who usually do not buy from UK because of the strong pound. Since the start of the recession, the pound sterling has lost about 30% of its value, at one point it was virtually on par with Euro, making products and services in UK more affordable to EU countries, this lead to some online traders getting additional revenue of up to 35% from the EU.

If you are not already selling online, how about the opportunity for you to win your own ecommerce shopping cart that could help you start selling online within a few hours? UK Webmaster Forum, Webmaster server is offering to give one lucky winner a Boss Cart Premium shopping cart. There is no long-winded entry form, you just need to register at Webmaster Server, visit the win a shopping cart thread, update it and you could be the winner.

It is highly recommended that you visit the forum and win a copy of Boss Cart and start taking advantage or the online retail opportunity that savvy ecommerce merchants have been taking to increase their sale in this recession.

Online business and chargebacks

As usually webmaster and small business related discussions are going on at UK Webmaster forums. One of the post that caught my eyes was on that highlights one of the most serious problems facing small online business: fraud.
It is very difficult to get a payment processing account if you are strictly and online business, the few institution that gives you credit card payment processing facility give you at extremely unfavourable terms (for example WorldPay ask you for a deposit of your one month turn over and also pays you in arrears of four week.UK Webmaster forum senior member ablaye from USA highlight the problems he faces at one of his sites in this post:

The question says it all.
What is your worst loss in an online business due to fraud?
What steps did you take to prevent online fraud in the future?

Recently, I have been hit by a wave of fraudulent credit card transactions on some of my websites.
Over the years, I lost a few $xxx due to chargeback fees.
I am so glad that I did not have to ship any product. All I am offering are services that are promptly cancelled the minute I discover the fraud.

You can join this discussion on UK Webmaster Forum.
You can subscribe to UK Webmaster Forums XML feed here