Fraudulent Ebike Websites Frauds and Swindles: Prevention and Remedies

All you can do in two minutes to be reimbursed by a fraudulent ebike website

Nothing! In most cases. It takes less than two minutes to do nothing 🙂 Because oftentimes you will not be able to do anything. Especially if you bought from the fake website of a company that doesn’t even exist. Even if the company does exist, but is located in another country, your country judiciary system will not be able to pursue them.

In the European Union, there is a website of the European Commission, that displays your rights in case of online purchase in your country. You may find some useful tools there, especially to prevent being swindled. Indeed, once your money has been stolen, there’s not much you can do. In some cases, you can contact as soon as possible your credit card company and contest the payment so that they may be able to stop the transaction. Still, how can you notice the fraud and signal it before your payment is processed, i.e. within 24 hours at the latest?  In other cases, like in France, if you bought from a website corresponding to a real company, there is a simple, fast and cost free judicial procedure. If you have any written proof of your transaction, you should write a registered letter to the seller. If he doesn’t answer within a month, just send a paper copy of the registered letter and of the proof of your transaction or contract to the clerk of the tribunal. Within a month, he will order the reseller to refund your money. Provided that the website you purchased from is connected to a real, reachable company.

The core of the problem: difficult law enforcement

WWW means world wide web. Indeed, its scope goes beyond all national barriers, even for trade and commerce. Unfortunately, law enforcement at worldwide level is almost inexistent. So the web enables us to purchase from e-commerce websites based in other nations, which can’t be reached by our legal safeguards. To put it bluntly, we can pay for a product or service that is counterfeited, defective or even inexistent, and have no way to recover our money.

Why scam ebike and ebikes spare parts sales websites are sprawling

Because of the worldwide economic slowdown, lately ebike sales have decreased in almost every country. That involves that there are way more discounts and special offers. Scammers take advantage of that, being aware of the fact that customers are on the prowl for bargains, and are easily wooed tby anybody offering lower prices. Moreover, the fact that there is an incredible variety of ebikes and therefore of ebikes spare parts, it is difficult, especially for newcomers, to distinguish between the original article and a counterfeited one.

Example of a website cashing in your money without selling any ebike spare parts

The image the beneath refers to the website pieces-detacheesfr.com/bosch-ebike-kit-d-installation-original-kiox-300-smart-system. They simply copy our images and our texts, see our page. They let you pay, but you never get any purchased item. How do we know? Simple, they wrote our email on their pages for customers demanding counsel. So one of the victims wrote us, complaining that he never got the part he bought. Sad. They even published fake security logos on their pages, flashier than an army general’s pins. We haven’t succeeded in blocking them so far. The website is anonimously registered in Nevada, we haven’t discovered yet who the owner is:

Precautions to be taken

Since there are almost no remedies once you have been scammed, especially if you paid a foreign website, it’s better to avoid falling into the increasingly numerous e-commerce traps.

• Do an accurate exam of the website you’re visiting. Has it got https and a padlock icon, which means that it has a digital certificate? Unfortunately many phishing and fraudulent websites do buy digital certificates. Just check the favicon, i.e. the small icon on the left of the URL, it should correspond to that of the official brand website. Look at the picture below, this scam website boschvelo.com tried to reproduce Bosch favicon but did a lousy job: their fake Bosch favicon is oval, not round like Bosch’s original one:

• Look at the URL. For instance, there is a fake website sramcycling.com. They could not obtain the domain name sram.com, because it already belonged to Sram. Scammers often use  a domain name like trekebikes.com, never trek.com nor trek.fr, already bought by the original manufacturer.
• Stick with the sellers you have already bought from – change your provider only if you found one offering significantly advantages and safety guarantees.
• Make a Google search typing the name of the website+reviews, to learn what customers say about it. Searching Facebook, Reddit or even YouTube with the name of the ebike or of its brand can also helpful. About the hereafter mentioned Engwe fake websites, there’s not a single review mentioning them.
• Search for the ebike you are targeting on secondhand websites such as Craigslist. Are ther many thereof for sale? You may want to contact a seller to ask about his e-bike condition, and why he wants to sell it. That ebike could just be a low quality one. If the type of its motor is not specified, you may want refuse to purchase it. Remember, torque is the power trasmitted to the wheel, it must be sufficient, at least 65 Nm if you ride uphill, or 40 Nm on a light ebike, uphill.
• Beware of popular Chinese ebike brands. There are websites created by small or even individual companies which just resell those brands. They take logos and images from the original brand website, in order to look just like the manufacturer’s website. In the worst cases, they don’t sell any ebike, they just take your money. An example of that is Engwe, that lists on its website almost a hundred websites pretending to be the original Engwe, with domain names very convincing, such as engwe.eu, engwe.net, engwe.dk, engwe.nl, engwe.fr, engwe.it. That is all the more deceiving, since normally big companies buy all the domain names containing their brand-name, to avoid that kind of manipulation. Engwe did not, and was compelled to create its websites with domain names such as engwe-bikes-eu.com, which look less official than the aforementioned scam websites.
• Besides that, some cheap chinese ebikes feature tires that feel just like plastic, low quality rubber, needing replacement after less than 300 miles.

 

• If the price of the ebike or of the spare part or accessory is too low compared to the competition, beware of possible frauds.
• Verify whether there’s a possibility to communicate with the seller. You could ask a question regarding after sale service, which should be sound and effective. Return policy should be specified, although sometimes even reliable ebike and spare parts sellers don’t do it. In case of an ebike purchase, ask the seller about warranty, features, and specifications of the desired ebike. Try to gauge the reseller competence and knowledge of the ebike asking specific questions, concerning for instance the ebike torque, the suspension travel and so on. Be wary of resellers who know little about ebikes they sell.
• Look for spare parts of the ebike you intend to buy. For some ebikes, even if they are quite popular, is almost impossible to find any spare parts. Of course this is never the case for reputed brands.

Report suspicious websites

For the UK, there is the National Security Center to report fraudulent websites. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission provides remedies and prevention against online frauds.

You can also report the website to Google, Antivirus providers, Microsoft, etc. Google safe search will block browsers from displaying websites containing malware, but can’t do anything against websites selling counterfeited ebikes spare parts or simply stealing your money. It won’t even detect their fraudulent character.

Images: Pixabay.com, pieces-detacheesfr.com, boschvelo.com, engwe.eu