When victims try to pay for their bargain box, their payment details are stolen and used to set up recurring payments, allowing criminals to take money from their bank accounts.
Earlier this year, supermarket Lidl launched limited edition mystery boxes, filled with unknown products from the ‘middle of Lidl’ - its middle aisle which features a rotating range of home, garden and leisure items. The mystery boxes were said to contain products worth £100 for just £20. Lidl sold the boxes from a website created for the promotion: https://ift.tt/ct1ulWk.
Here, we look at these fake offers and explain how to spot and avoid these scams.
Lidl Mystery Box scam
Scammers are exploiting the hype around this offer by advertising fake mystery boxes on social media, claiming mystery boxes are available again and sharing a dodgy link.
The link takes you to a fake Lidl branded website designed to look like you’re ordering mystery boxes - but your card details are then used to set up continuous payments where they can be taken.
The websites claim to have very limited numbers of boxes left, encouraging people to make orders quickly.
Victims have told Which? they thought they were ordering the real thing from a genuine website, but became suspicious when they didn’t receive any order confirmation. The promised mystery boxes never arrived, and some time later they realised money was being taken from their bank accounts. One victim told us she spotted that £99 left her account within minutes of submitting her card details to the scam, and the same company collected another payment of £88 from her two weeks later.
Read more:How to avoid ‘sharing’ scams on social media
The posts you see on your Facebook feed can often appear to be from a real person, who you may assume is a friend or is someone in your extended network. But these can be cunningly concealed adverts targeting you based on the material you’ve previously engaged with.
Because it looks like the post is from a real person, the information shared might seem authentic. It can make an opinion, advice or tip seem more believable or persuasive than any advert.
Some of these posts will have attracted hundreds of likes and further shares - this could be because many others have been tricked into thinking it’s real, but often scammers will use other fake profiles to like and share the account, adding to the post’s credibility and spreading it to an even wider audience of potential victims.
Scammers may have accessed a real person’s social media account. When people click on the person’s profile, it will show that they have friends, connections and activity that makes it look real.
What to do if you’ve lost money to a scam
First, contact your bank immediately if you think you’ve handed over payment details, or if you’ve lost money.
If a fraudulent continuous payment agreement has been set up on your account, you’ll need to ask the bank to refund you the money that’s been taken, and make sure to cancel the continuous payment. Tell the bank it’s a scam and you never signed up for recurring payments.
source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/beware-of-lidl-mystery-box-scam-on-social-media-aIlxt7g4wURz