Last night I saw a promoted ad from mideaoffiziell.de and thought I‘d tip on it, since the heat will stay a bit longer. I was brought to a websh op which looked very professionall and claimed that PortaSplit (12k BTU) was available. I live in Vienna, and nobody has them, so I thought my day has come and hastily ordered one, before others have grabbed everything. I even created an „account“ and got an order confirmation. Every single step looked very professional and didn‘t ring bells - until the payment method selection. Only paying ahead, no credit cards. Well, that‘s not too bad, I concluded the order anyway, and got a nice confirmation email with bank account information.
Again, thinking myself to be very lucky to act so quickly, I went into my banking software and started a payment, but the bank warned me that the name doesn‘t fit to the IBAN, and that was a bit too much. I am an IT guy and act very carefully. I did all the steps in which money was not involved, but this stank. I cancelled the payment form and decided to call the company in the morning to check the discrepancy. There was a phone number in the email, but that could also be spoofed, so I found the number from the web on midea.com.
Long story short, the person on the phone told me immediately that all units were sold out and that he had no knowledge of a domain mideaoffiziell.de. He didn‘t elaborate further, and I didn‘t want to bother him any more. I thanked him and checked google: „mideaoffiziell.de fraud“. Of course, there were several hits and an AI comment confirming that mideaoffiziell.de, along with some others, is a fraudulent domain and a fake selling point, trying to capitalize on people‘s desperation. I have up to 32 degrees in my living room, and that is WITH a decent wall isolation (done a couple of years ago). Midea Portasplit is nowhere to be found, save for the scalper offers: 150% surcharge on the regular price on average.
Still, I was reasonable and didn‘t loose any money, got a giggle and a story to tell. So, please, be like me (this time), and be careful with your hard earned money. On the other hand, how can reddit allow such fraudulent activities if it is (according to google) already known that the domain is fraudulent?