Beware of "oz-bargain.com" sales enhancer scam on Facebook / Instagram

scotty on 22/05/2024 - 17:22
Last edited 22/05/2024 - 17:37 by 1 other user

We have been notified about a scam that's masquerading as OzBargain. The first report was actually from last July. Here are the bits and pieces from emails I've received by those who got scammed. Basically the scammer recruits people from Facebook or Instagram about this work from home opportunity to make easy money. From the pieces I've gathered,

  1. If you got recruited as a "sales enhancer" you need to deposit some money into their platform.
  2. You will then receive "Boost Missions" — which are basically making orders on Amazon or eBay, and they'll pay 1% to 3% of commission to your account.
  3. After completing a few missions, you can then withdraw the funds.

However from some emails I've received, (3) is usually where things fall apart. This guy posted a complaint on our ProductReview page after losing $750. I also have one guy stated in the email that he recharged $6,700 into his account and made 33 orders but had trouble getting the money out. Yes, it's a scam.

Moreover the website, oz-bargain.com, is obviously infringing on our registered trademark. There's also copyright violation with the website logo, favicon and terms of use pages. Our ABN was also mentioned quite a few times on their website.

I have contacted the domain name registrar (Namesilo) and owner of the IP address (Kaopu Cloud) but I doubt much will happen.

Updated

Scammer's FAQ page screenshot, provided by someone who got scammed.

Site Discussion

Comments

  • spackbace on 22/05/2024 - 17:26
    +7

    Quality terms

    God that sucks though, would hate to see a family member fall victim to something like that

    Though c'mon, how are scams still such an easy thing in 2024?! Either teaching should be more widespread, or governments need to make it easier for sites to be taken down

    • Iluvfreebies on 22/05/2024 - 17:39
      +3

      Anyone can be a victim of a scam; the timing needs to be right.
      Most people who would fall victim of this are usually the ones who are looking for a side hustle.

      • Nillionaire on 04/06/2024 - 20:22

        Plenty of people are capable of not falling for a scam.

    • scrimshaw on 22/05/2024 - 17:46
      +1

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcv1ASONPL4

      Much of their strategy involves hitting up randoms on social media, while pretending to be us. In this example the victims are approached by someone on Instagram.

      • Clear on 22/05/2024 - 19:53
        +2

        Reminds me that time someone impersonated me and tried to hit up Gearbest to share exclusive deals on other platforms in exchange for $$$. Fortunately GB had my real contact details 😜

    • Cheaplikethebird on 23/05/2024 - 09:30
      +2

      People ignore their instincts when they're desperate

  • randomusername2017 on 22/05/2024 - 17:28
    +5

    recharged $6,700 into his account

    So this is what they do when there's no GC for sale on the classifieds🤔

  • MS Paint on 22/05/2024 - 17:42
    +12

    I love the way a mod edited Scotty's post.

    • spackbace on 22/05/2024 - 17:45
      +2

      Twice… 😂

      • MS Paint on 22/05/2024 - 17:51
        +4

        just doing my job boss

  • Sye on 22/05/2024 - 17:43
    +4

    Time to OzBargain (DDoS) the scammers.

  • Sye on 22/05/2024 - 17:50

    I've been recruited as a "Forums enhancer" to "Boost threads".

  • capslock janitor on 22/05/2024 - 17:58

    neva mess w/ da professionales

  • hasselbladsnapper on 22/05/2024 - 18:06
    -6

    Well I was scammed for $89 for some R M Williams jeans, two weeks ago. I was a perfect lift of the RM Website, and suggested there was a range of things on offer clothes, bags etc ….. I called RM help, NO record of my purchase, and it was the official link. The dodgey one was posted by "Crash Block" sounds appropriate !!. Media reports are suggesting there is a large scam operation coming out of China for high end products, so please watch out!!.

    hasselbladsnapper on 22/05/2024 - 18:06 (Collapsed - Offtopic. Show)
    • spackbace on 22/05/2024 - 18:12

      Umm that was a legitimate post

      • theHMASfriendship on 22/05/2024 - 20:26
        +2

        If it was a legitimate post then why won’t RM tell us his first name??

        Wake up Ozbargain you are the product

    • Empharand on 22/05/2024 - 18:21
      +3

      Why wouldn't you just do a charge-back through whatever financial service you used (eg. Your bank, PayPal etc) if they didn't fulfill your order? If they don't have any record of your order and didn't fulfill it then they won't be able to contest the chargeback with any proof?

    • randomusername2017 on 22/05/2024 - 18:53
      +2

      Do you have sister by the name of Pam?¿

  • Empharand on 22/05/2024 - 18:09
    +1

    I feel sorry for the person that got scammed; but to leave a review like that is defamatory. Hopefully someone has reached out to 'Shay S' to explain that they were scammed by people pretending to be OzBargain

    There was a part of me that was hoping the scammer didn't pay for the Privacy Redaction for the 'Registrant Name' so the WHOIS lookup would show something. It does have the 'Registrant Email' which I assume goes to the scammer?

    • rompastompa on 22/05/2024 - 19:42

      'Registrant Email' which I assume goes to the scammer?

      It'd likely be a throwaway free email address.

      I went through the source code to see if there are any breadcrumbs, there are several comments written in Chinese on the files, but nothing really points to a culprit.

      I found some other sites such as this similar scam site. Interestingly, a previous DNS record points to the same server with kmart.life as the domain.

      They also registered seeveral otherdomains, such as oz-bargain.shop, oz-bargain.top, oz-bargain.live, but the registrants are also hidden.

      017.tiktoknb.com which also points to the same server seems to be associated "Shenzhen Tencent Computer Systems Company Limited - Tencent Building, Kejizhongyi Avenue"

  • JoeBogan on 22/05/2024 - 18:36
    +3

    Reading the negative reviews on there are laughable, I mean this is a bargain website what more do they want haha

    • MS Paint on 22/05/2024 - 18:57

      Rating at 2.7 is bloody good. I'm certain last time I looked it was 1.9.

      So many snowflakes leaving 1 star reviews. FFS

      • AustriaBargain on 22/05/2024 - 19:29
        +1

        Lol, a Nazi controlled website, something Scotty not telling us? 🧐

        I never would have thought to check OZB on a review site. I guess OZB is technically "selling" us content in exchange for ad money and affiliate revenue. But still, it's a site that doesn't cost anything, why would you need to check a review of it when you can just visit the site and see for yourself.

      • hamza23 on 22/05/2024 - 20:39
        +1

        There's a statistics graph where you can see the score history. Been about the same since 2014.

        • MS Paint on 22/05/2024 - 20:44

          Awesome. Maybe it was 2.9 I'm confusing it with then.

    • morse on 23/05/2024 - 02:52
      -1

      The reviews were certainly entertaining, and I was surprised to see how many there are - that said there are some valid critiques or at least discussion worthy points, which have already played out in the forums and on deal posts.

      • JoeBogan on 23/05/2024 - 10:20

        Care to name a few discussion worthy points?

        • morse on 23/05/2024 - 11:57

          They’ve already been discussed 🙂

  • AustriaBargain on 22/05/2024 - 19:27
    +3

    Damn, you should have registered that domain yourself. I know they are like $16 a year so it adds up, 10 .coms over 10 years is like $1,600, and hyphen in a domain name is like bad form, but ozbargain isn't a little hobby site anymore.

    • Empharand on 22/05/2024 - 21:33

      Yeah but that won't stop scammers from trying with a whole bunch of similar domains (eg. .info, org.au etc) so where does that really end? It does become a costly exercise and lets face it fake sites that replicate the real site aren't exactly a new thing.

      If we go by the variants that are just 'Ozbargain' then we have approx 35 on that list and where one person might pick-up that 'Ozbargain.fun' isn't the legit, others may not be so fortunate (and educated).

      I could be wrong here but I'd say the reason why these people were scammed was namely because they bought into an obvious get rich quick scheme

      • AustriaBargain on 22/05/2024 - 21:38

        For me, .com.au and .com are king. Unless you are from another country that has their own like .co.uk, then anything else doesn't really matter.

        It is weird that people will spend thousands of dollars just to get 1-3% back. I make affiliate sites myself and it's only worth it in volume. And even then it's not like the old days; Amazon's affiliate rates used to be HUGE, used to be so easy to make money just linking to Amazon products.

      • whyisave on 09/06/2024 - 09:49
        +1

        trying with a whole bunch of similar domains (eg. .info, org.au etc)

        • helpozbargains.com
        • ozbarga.in
        • ozbargain.ai
        • ozbargain.app
        • ozbargain.asia
        • ozbargain.baby
        • ozbargain.blog
        • ozbargain.clothing
        • ozbargain.cloud
        • ozbargain.forsale
        • ozbargain.fun
        • ozbargain.homes
        • ozbargain.house
        • ozbargain.info
        • ozbargain.live
        • ozbargain.me
        • ozbargain.org.au
        • ozbargain.properties
        • ozbargain.property
        • ozbargain.rentals
        • ozbargain.site
        • ozbargain.space
        • ozbargain.sydney
        • ozbargain.today
        • ozbargain.travel
        • ozbargains.net
        • promotedozbargain.club
        • promotedozbargain.co
        • promotedozbargain.life
        • promotedozbargain.melbourne
        • promotedozbargain.sale
        • promotedozbargain.style
        • promotedozbargain.us
        • promotedozbargain.xyz
        • theozbargain.com
        • theozbargain.com.au

        ozbarga.in is a nice one, for the Indian diaspora,
        as well as the ozbargain.sydney for Sydneysiders.

  • USER DC on 22/05/2024 - 20:55
    +1

    @scotty report it to major DNS providers pls who can try to block this domain as a spam/scam website

    And help many others who might use those DNS servers like adguard or quad9 or like unlock origin team or other DNS providers/blockers that care about blocking fake scam websites

  • localhost on 22/05/2024 - 21:17

    @scotty: contact those guys for removing site:
    Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]

    • Empharand on 22/05/2024 - 21:21

      I have contacted the domain name registrar (Namesilo) and owner of the IP address (Kaopu Cloud) but I doubt much will happen.

      • AustriaBargain on 22/05/2024 - 21:44

        They'll usually forward the email to the owner of the domain. But it's obvious abuse, if you chase it up it'll come down eventually. Scotty's time, per hour of OZB effort he puts in, must be pretty valuable though. Chasing this up could cost him a bit of time.

        • rompastompa on 22/05/2024 - 21:45

          Scotty's time, per hour of OZB effort he puts in, must be pretty valuable though.

          Hey @scotty, employ me to take this role!

  • altomic on 22/05/2024 - 23:29
    +2

    meanwhile, oxbargain.com is a great legitimate site if you want to trade oxen at a great price.

  • WT on 23/05/2024 - 08:08

    that ROI sounds really, really shit

  • 2esc on 23/05/2024 - 12:38
    +2

    "If you got recruited as a "sales enhancer" you need to deposit some money into their platform"

    This is a huge alarm bell to me that sentence to me screams scam!

    I've never heard of any but are there any employment opportunities that are real and worthwhile that you deposit money into their account?

  • harshbdmmaster718 on 23/05/2024 - 16:30

    saw this post yesterday and not sure if this is related but.

    2nd time this has happened while logged in.

    yesterday suddenly when posting a comment, got a SSL handshake failed error page. tried again got a Cloudflare bad gateway page (with ✔, cloudflare ✔, ozbargain ❌ ). all other websites worked except ozbargain.
    came back a few minutes later it was fixed.

    just now again but different error I forget some Cloudflare error. but fixed straight away. seems like something causing ozb to go down.

    harshbdmmaster718 on 23/05/2024 - 16:30 (Collapsed - Offtopic. Show)
  • Gnilgorf on 24/05/2024 - 12:46

    Today I learnt Ozbargain is on Product Review…

    Today I also had a good laugh at some of the reviews.

  • try2bhelpful on 24/05/2024 - 15:45
    +1

    In all honesty you wonder what the people being scammed are thinking? They are asking for money up front. That should ring massive alarm bells.

    The National Inquirer would run articles like “World War 2 bomber found on moon” followed up by “world war 2 bomber found on moon missing”. They asked the owner once if he felt guilty running these sort of articles. He said “The paper costs $1 and you have to be able to read. Both those things should preclude you from believing anything we write”.

    In all fairness we do have our fair share of obnoxious (insert word here that will be removed and replaced with the word “profanity”). I do think the moderators could be a bit more proactive but then it is also on us to highlight when things go too far. I’m a Bolshie bitch so I’m happy to go stand my ground. Although the best fun is just messing with their heads.

  • scotty on 03/06/2024 - 10:21

    Received another ProductReview question this morning by someone who got scammed by oz-bargain.com and lost $2,800.

  • scotty on 05/08/2024 - 21:43
    +1

    Received another email this evening from someone who got scammed by oz-bargain.com, who is trying to retrieve low 6-figure from the scammer's platform. Very sad affair.

    • Clear on 05/08/2024 - 23:24
      +1

      $2800 I can understand, but six… figures… Very surprising and not all uncommon when you consider the Microsoft support calls and even Booking.com's phishing scam.

      • scotty on 06/08/2024 - 09:24

        Consider the victim actually took out personal loan and withdrew money from his home loan, it has hit him very hard.

  • RIshidarji on 29/09/2024 - 15:15

    Even i had recieved watsapp message
    I have there watsapp number as well
    Name of the agent:Blanco curtis
    No:+61 411 918 799
    Poses to have business number
    Email [email protected]
    Website: https://oz-bargain.com
    ABN is connected to OZ BARGAIN PTY LTD
    If you want to take action please do take, the website is still active they still contacting ppl and phishing most of the side hustlers or newcomers in country who wants to earn. This is really sad

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