Scammers responsible for swindling prospective boat owners out of thousands of euro may have set up a new website to lure unsuspecting customers.
Afloat.ie previously reported on the “authorised push payment” fraud scheme, which employed bogus websites using credentials stolen from reputable businesses for ‘phantom’ boat sales to victims in the UK, Ireland and elsewhere.
While those sites are no longer online, a similar website — which appears to have been registered in April of this year, in the same period when the previous sites appeared — has been flagged by concerned boaters suspicious of its ‘too good to be true’ prices.
The ‘About’ section of this site, which is riddled with spelling mistakes, claims its operators have “8 years of experience in new & used boats” and are “one of the key players on the boat market also fishing boat , speed boat and yacht boat” (sic).
While one person taken in by the previous scam managed to stop his payment going through, others were not so lucky — with 12 Irish victims losing €83,000 between them. The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.
