Cheap Dr Martens or so I thought BE CAREFUL

mattyprice4004

It's immediately obvious this is a Chinese knock off site - a company like Doc Martens doesn't need to drop prices from £180 to £26 to sell shoes. They're realistically never going to be that cheap, anything more than a 20% discount via an official outlet etc is a huge red flag.

greyteam1959

DiddyDavies said:

greyteam1959 said:

All agreed that it is a scam site then ??
So what can be done to stop them ??

The easiest and probably most effective way is to get people to understand that goods being sold for a fraction of their normal selling price is something that rarely if ever happens and before sending any money to a company that you've never dealt with before, carry out a bit of basic research into that company and try to find out:
a/ Who they are and where they are located,
b/ If they are complying with the e-trading legislation in the country in which they are registered,
c/ Do their T&C's make sense and are their any indications that they are simply a copy from another website.

And try to ensure that you pay with a credit or debit card so at least you may have the option of a chargeback or S75 claim.
Agreed, doing all of the above still won't stop all of the scammers, but it would certainly go a long way to helping.

Yes I am well aware of all this but my post said "So what can be done to stop them ??"
Why don't the likes of Google have a system so that Joe Public can report scam websites ??
Or am I missing something obvious ??

DiddyDavies

greyteam1959 said:

Yes I am well aware of all this but my post said "So what can be done to stop them ??"
Why don't the likes of Google have a system so that Joe Public can report scam websites ??
Or am I missing something obvious ??

Until the companies advertising actually defraud people, what is there to report?
Yes, they may look as dodgy as hell but if all it took to get websites removed from Google search results was a report of a suspicion, the door would be left wide open for malicious reports and people trying to get their competitors removed.

If consumers became more educated about where they send their money and did more research prior to this, it would have more effect than reporting ever will as these dodgy companies would simply start up again under a new trading name if/when removed.
Stopping money getting to these companies by stopping people sending money is probably the only way to stop or slow them down.

Pollycat

mattyprice4004 said:

It's immediately obvious this is a Chinese knock off site - a company like Doc Martens doesn't need to drop prices from £180 to £26 to sell shoes. They're realistically never going to be that cheap, anything more than a 20% discount via an official outlet etc is a huge red flag.

Not necessarily.
I've bought from the official DM website at a fair bit more than 20% off the original price.
That may or may not be because I take a small size. And can actually wear junior size.
There are boots/shoes on the official site more than 20% off currently.

mac.d

I like the happy shopping they mention on the about us page, screams dodgy scam site straight away.

1. Secure Site
What we have done is to bring happy shopping as well as secure shopping.   

Main things that make a site dodgy are that they don't list a contact address (I'd never buy from a website that doesn't have a physical address for a head office/shop), and the domain name isn't a top level one, a big company like Dr Martens will most likely be a .com or .co.uk address.

One thing you could possibly do is report it to Dr Martens, I'm sure they'd be interested in a scam site using their brand? 
https://www.drmartens.com/uk/en_gb/contact

Guss

I think it's patently obvious what they are up to by making their site look like a Dr.Marten and it's a rip off of the original site. They've used Dr.Marten's photos and stolen logos from the original. Type this in the Google search bar and at the bottom of the page you will see this paid ad.... I'm disgusted that Google are making money from this by allowing this con of a company of pay them to appear on search results.

Pollycat

Guss said:

I think it's patently obvious what they are up to by making their site look like a Dr.Marten and it's a rip off of the original site. They've used Dr.Marten's photos and stolen logos from the original. Type this in the Google search bar and at the bottom of the page you will see this paid ad.... I'm disgusted that Google are making money from this by allowing this con of a company of pay them to appear on search results.

Of course it's patently obvious what they're up to.

Of course it's patently obvious that it's a rip-off of the original site.

It's also patently obvious (at least to me) that's it's also a scam.

But what are you going to do about it?

mac.d has suggested you contact the official DM company. I've actually sent them a message this morning with links to this and the other thread.

Have you googled something like 'how to report fake companies to Google'?

jon81uk

If they are based in the UK you can contact Trading Standards to take action. But I don't think they can do much with the Chinese sellers.

Tokmon

JamoLew said:

Guss said:

Came across this website https://www.docmartenboots.store/ and my jaw nearly dropped as I've been after a pair of these for ages and was waiting till the prices dropped.
I even got to the point of loading up my cart with 4 pairs and then I began to get suspicious when I looked at the Shipping & Returns and noticed there wasn't any information on how to return. But I should have smelt a rat sooner, what was I thinking that I could get a pair of these boots for a fraction of what they actually cost. The above website even came up in a search for 'Dr Martens' in the first page of Google results BUT as a paid ad. Absolutely disgusting Google are promoting a site selling what must be utter crap bearing no relation to the originals in quality which I'm sure has duped some people, and Google is financially gaining from it.

What I don't understand is how they can be allowed to get away with this!!

I agree -- Google needs to start taking a bit more ownership and responsibility for the content which it makes available

I completely disagree with that statement because I believe it's important that the internet is freely available and as Google is one of the first places people go to find sites they shouldn't be choosing what people can and can't see. (This obviously doesn't apply to blatantly illegal content such as images).

Guss said:

I think it's patently obvious what they are up to by making their site look like a Dr.Marten and it's a rip off of the original site. They've used Dr.Marten's photos and stolen logos from the original. Type this in the Google search bar and at the bottom of the page you will see this paid ad.... I'm disgusted that Google are making money from this by allowing this con of a company of pay them to appear on search results.

Just because a site looks dodgy why should google have to filter them out? As others have said on here people need to learn to avoid dodgy sites and scams because that's the only way to stop them.

Spank

Tokmon said:

JamoLew said:

Guss said:

Came across this website https://www.docmartenboots.store/ and my jaw nearly dropped as I've been after a pair of these for ages and was waiting till the prices dropped.
I even got to the point of loading up my cart with 4 pairs and then I began to get suspicious when I looked at the Shipping & Returns and noticed there wasn't any information on how to return. But I should have smelt a rat sooner, what was I thinking that I could get a pair of these boots for a fraction of what they actually cost. The above website even came up in a search for 'Dr Martens' in the first page of Google results BUT as a paid ad. Absolutely disgusting Google are promoting a site selling what must be utter crap bearing no relation to the originals in quality which I'm sure has duped some people, and Google is financially gaining from it.

What I don't understand is how they can be allowed to get away with this!!

I agree -- Google needs to start taking a bit more ownership and responsibility for the content which it makes available

I completely disagree with that statement because I believe it's important that the internet is freely available and as Google is one of the first places people go to find sites they shouldn't be choosing what people can and can't see. (This obviously doesn't apply to blatantly illegal content such as images).

Guss said:

I think it's patently obvious what they are up to by making their site look like a Dr.Marten and it's a rip off of the original site. They've used Dr.Marten's photos and stolen logos from the original. Type this in the Google search bar and at the bottom of the page you will see this paid ad.... I'm disgusted that Google are making money from this by allowing this con of a company of pay them to appear on search results.

Just because a site looks dodgy why should google have to filter them out? As others have said on here people need to learn to avoid dodgy sites and scams because that's the only way to stop them.

I believe that JamoLew was referring to google taking money to advertise a dodgy site.