Scam websites and You: A guide to not throwing your money away
Scam websites and You: A guide to not throwing your money away
Disclaimer: This post was originally on Reddit (RedLib Link) and has now been transferred to Lemmy so that both /r/canadaguns and /c/ca_firearms_rights are more inline with one another and to make Reddit folks feel more at home here on Lemmy.
Over the last 4 years, there have been a marked increase in straight-up scam websites. So much so that we pin a continually evolving list in the FAQ thread every week.
Currently, that list reads:
Buyghostgunscanada.com (if you fall for this one you absolutely deserve it)
We get DAILY posts on this topic. This is extremely common sense, but here's how to spot these fake websites:
- they're selling prohibited firearms or ammunition.
- they're selling products for WAY less than anyone else. If it's too good to be true, it is.
- they claim to have powder/primers in stock for way less than anyone else.
- they have some bullshit name like the ones above.
- they have unfinished Lorem Ipsum type content, spelling mistakes, or nonsense wording.
- they only take payment via Paypal, EMT, or some American processor like Zelle. If they DO NOT accept a credit card, 99% of the time, it's a scam. The 1% are old boys and you'll be able to search them or get word of mouth reviews. Their website will look like Geocities from 1997.
- they reuse the same images/branding/stock images from multiple sites, or just straight up rip off logos from old sites (Canadaammo being the main one, which is now defunct).
- the mailing address/physical address/phone number will be at a random location, usually a warehouse or house that is in no way associated with a firearms business. A quick google search will pull it up.
If you have purchased from one of these sites, you should immediately:
- put a credit hold on with your bank, depending on what financial information you gave them. If you typed in a credit card, it will be compromised and should be cancelled.
- If you gave them your PAL, you should contact the CFP and report it as compromised and get a new one issued.
Now, what can we do to stop these?
Unfortunately, not much. We have two options:
- Anything with a .ca domain can be reported to the CIRA using info@cira.ca. They have full authority to revoke a .ca domain and there are stricter registration requirements for those sites. The more reports they get, the more likely they are to take action.
You can report scam websites to search engines. For example, here is Google's report page: https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/?hl=en%2F -the moderators of /c/ca_firearms_rights have stricken this bullet point as there are multiple ways to report domains. This WikiHow guide can help explain: https://www.wikihow.com/Report-a-Website
We will keep updating the list as it grows, but PLEASE use common sense. These sites are very obvious.