Phishing and fake shops

In phishing, fraudsters try to get login details or payments out of you by email, text message or phone call. A fake shop looks like an ordinary online shop but does not deliver, even though you paid. The signs below come from the German consumer advice centre (Verbraucherzentrale), the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and the police. No single sign proves anything. The more of them you see, the more careful you should be.

How to spot phishing

• Language: Faulty German, missing umlauts or Cyrillic characters point to a translation.
• Greeting: Impersonal greetings such as “Dear customer” are a warning sign. A personal greeting does not prove the message is genuine, though.
• Pressure: Short deadlines and threats, for example of a blocked account, are typical.
• Requests for data: Banks never ask for a PIN, TAN or similar data by email or phone.
• Links, attachments, forms: Do not open unexpected files. Open login pages yourself in the browser instead of following the link in the message.
• No reason: The message comes from a company you are not a customer of, or concerns a contract or claim you do not know.

Sender addresses can be forged. So do not rely on a name looking familiar.

How to spot a fake shop

• Web address: Additions to well known addresses, such as “.de.com” instead of “.de”, or an offer that does not fit the address.
• Payment: Several payment methods are shown first, and at checkout only prepayment is left.
• Price: Strikingly low prices, especially for sought after products. Not every cheap shop is a fake, though.
• Trust seals: Invented seals, or genuine seals without a link to the certificate.
• Reviews: Strikingly many glowing reviews that differ from reviews on other sites.
• Terms and legal notice: Clumsy, machine written terms or none at all. A missing legal notice is a clear warning sign. It can also be incomplete or give an address abroad.

The Verbraucherzentrale’s fake shop finder gives an assessment.

What to do after a mistake

You clicked a link but entered nothing:

1. Update your antivirus software and scan the whole computer.
2. Check that antivirus software, browser and operating system update automatically.
3. If login details were saved on the computer, change PIN, passwords and security questions.

You entered a PIN, password, account or card number:

1. Contact the real provider immediately and have the account or card blocked if needed. In Germany the blocking hotline is 116 116.
2. Change passwords and security questions right away.
3. Check your account statements closely.
4. File a criminal complaint with the police.
5. If an email account was taken over, change the passwords of all accounts that use that address as the username.

You paid a fake shop:

1. Call your bank immediately and ask whether the payment can be stopped or reversed. According to the Verbraucherzentrale the time window is very short, and a direct debit can be reversed for up to eight weeks.
2. With PayPal, Klarna, Wero and similar services, inform the payment service straight away.
3. Secure evidence: order confirmation, invoice, emails and screenshots of the offer.
4. Report fraud on platforms such as Kleinanzeigen or social networks to the operator.
5. File a report with the police or the online police station. According to the police this often gets fake shops taken down.
6. Keep checking your account activity. You can have documents reviewed at the Verbraucherzentrale.

The first 30 minutes after a fraud are covered on the page Scammed? What to do now, reversing payments on the page Getting payments back.