Anyone that has fallen for this, don’t feel ashamed of yourselves. This is a very convincing site, and is actually one of the better ones i have seen.
I work for a large bank and investigate fraud cases, so i have seen more than my fair share of these types of scams.
This one looks like they have done their research quite well, changing the address to the actual bike shop, with all the details as lots of people investigate these shops by googling and street viewing the premises then decide its okay as its an actual shop.
Good luck on getting the money back, this can be a slow process, sometimes the beneficiary bank will hold the funds and return them especially if there have been numerous reports of fraud, other times they will have to reach out to the beneficiary to gain consent to return the funds, obviously this never happens.
However these fraudsters generally have a few accounts which when one is burnt they move to the next.
What to do:
Phone the bank to say you have been made aware that the website is a scam site and you would like to recall the funds due to fraudulent activity, they then have to investigate this, sending messages to the beneficiary bank and if they deem it is a fraud attempt have a legal and regulatory obligation to file a SAR(suspicious activity report) to the National Crime Agency.
Report to Action Fraud and provide as much info as possible, these reports from Action Fraud are sent to all banks who “should” proactively search for any of their customers who also have been defrauded and it helps build a case.
And always, always, always pay for online stuff via your credit card even if you have the cash to pay it off, stick it on a credit card, then pay it off straight away, you’ll still be eligible for the chargeback and pay no interest.
