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MavicJohn85

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Hello everyone,

I wanted to post this thread so that everyone is aware of an ongoing scam. You may see Ads of this via Google Ads when searching for specific keywords, or through other websites... so please beware and do not try to purchase a drone from these guys - it is a scam.

The Ad will show an advertisement stating something along the lines of a "24 Hour Sale", trying to sell a Mavic Pro at a "deep discount", for $40 USD. Other folks have reported something similar, at much less steeper discounts, for $200, $400, etc. Remember: If it's too good to be true, it usually is.

The e-commerce website is at: drones4you.myvolusion.com

They've setup a pretty simple website with a few fake products, of course the one being the most inciting the Mavic Pro for $40 USD. Then they'll collect your information, and your Credit Card information, process a payment through Stripe.com (a legitimate credit card processing vendor), and never ship out the product. Obviously, they are operating on a budget here and trying to get as many people as possible by spending some of the funds they collect on Google Adwords.

I personally wouldn't say I "fell" for this, since I used a virtual CC issued by my bank, and at $40 decided to take a chance without affecting my finances, and if it was a scam then I'd enjoy the hunt :)

They have a total of 52 subdomains under myvolusion.com, for various purposes, all leading to the same type of scam (see attached, "Subdomain Report.pdf"). All of them are being hosted via Amazon Web Services, and they're using a variety of different legitimate technologies to carry out this scheme, including:

  1. Google Adwords, to hook the victim after they search Google for specific keywords such as "DJI" - See attached screenshot for the specific Ad being posted.
  2. Stripe.com, for Credit Card processing.
  3. Godaddy.com, for the domain registration.
  4. Amazon Web Services, for hosting the website(s).
  5. Sendgrid.com, for email confirmations after creating an order.
  6. Google Gmail, [email protected] is being used as the email account to send via SendGrid.com for purchase confirmations.
I was able to find the contact information of the vendor from Stripe.com (the Credit Card processor), which reports a company called "CWC Marketing" as the primary contact for this account, at 478-365-0300. This number is a Verizon number, but that is either performing automatic call forwarding or is disconnected.

However, I created a web server on my personal hosting account, sent an SMS via my Twilio account with a link to the phone above stating something around the lines of "Stripe.com Alert - Customer Complaint, visit XXX link for more information", and did get a hit, so I logged the IP. The operator of this website is in Uruguay.

All of the information above has been reported to the proper authorities, including the FBI's IC3 complaint center, and all of the vendors listed above, to their respective abuse/fraud-related contacts.

Please be aware of this scam! Do not fall for this, and remember, if it's too good to be true, it is.
 

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Last edited:
Hello everyone,

I wanted to post this thread so that everyone is aware of an ongoing scam. You may see Ads of this via Google Ads when searching for specific keywords, or through other websites... so please beware and do not try to purchase a drone from these guys - it is a scam.

The Ad will show an advertisement stating something along the lines of a "24 Hour Sale", trying to sell a Mavic Pro at a "deep discount", for $40 USD. Other folks have reported something similar, at much less steeper discounts, for $200, $400, etc. Remember: If it's too good to be true, it usually is.

The e-commerce website is at: drones4you.myvolusion.com

They've setup a pretty simple website with a few fake products, of course the one being the most inciting the Mavic Pro for $40 USD. Then they'll collect your information, and your Credit Card information, process a payment through Stripe.com (a legitimate credit card processing vendor), and never ship out the product. Obviously, they are operating on a budget here and trying to get as many people as possible by spending some of the funds they collect on Google Adwords.

I personally wouldn't say I "fell" for this, since I used a virtual CC issued by my bank, and at $40 decided to take a chance without affecting my finances, and if it was a scam then I'd enjoy the hunt :)

They have a total of 52 subdomains under myvolusion.com, for various purposes, all leading to the same type of scam (see attached, "Subdomain Report.pdf"). All of them are being hosted via Amazon Web Services, and they're using a variety of different legitimate technologies to carry out this scheme, including:

  1. Google Adwords, to hook the victim after they search Google for specific keywords such as "DJI" - See attached screenshot for the specific Ad being posted.
  2. Stripe.com, for Credit Card processing.
  3. Godaddy.com, for the domain registration.
  4. Amazon Web Services, for hosting the website(s).
  5. Sendgrid.com, for email confirmations after creating an order.
  6. Google Gmail, [email protected] is being used as the email account to send via SendGrid.com for purchase confirmations.
I was able to find the contact information of the vendor from Stripe.com (the Credit Card processor), which reports a company called "CWC Marketing" as the primary contact for this account, at 478-365-0300. This number is a Verizon number, but that is either performing automatic call forwarding or is disconnected.

However, I created a web server on my personal hosting account, sent an SMS via my Twilio account with a link to the phone above stating something around the lines of "Stripe.com Alert - Customer Complaint, visit XXX link for more information", and did get a hit, so I logged the IP. The operator of this website is in Uruguay.

All of the information above has been reported to the proper authorities, including the FBI's IC3 complaint center, and all of the vendors listed above, to their respective abuse/fraud-related contacts.

Please be aware of this scam! Do not fall for this, and remember, if it's too good to be true, it is.

Yep luckily my boss used paypal
 
If you fall for a Mavic being $200-400, or even less, you probably should never be shopping online. There's a point where the deal is so absurd that you have to realize it's too good to be true.
 
Sounds like a lot of time and effort spent to lose $40, when you knew you were probably being scammed from the start. Cool that you tracked it down. Too bad you didnt SELL that service to some one and make a few hundred bucks.
 
If you fall for a Mavic being $200-400, or even less, you probably should never be shopping online. There's a point where the deal is so absurd that you have to realize it's too good to be true.
Exactly, some people deserve to loose their money when they think they can get a MP for 40$. Santas Clus is real my friend!
 
Honestly, $40 for a Mavic? Obviously thats a scam. Why did you even bother with this?
 
MavicJohn85, great detective work! The other thing that could be done is to report their Google Adwords account to the search engine, who will suspend the account because it clearly violates Google's TOS.
 
Good work. It's nice to see somebody had the wherewithal to do the dirty work. When I saw the add I wasn't sure because I have bought things straight from China at rediculously low prices. Sadly I lack the knowledge you have to track down the offender. I actually decided it was a scam when I followed the 24 hour sale for 4 days, and it was still on! Lol. There really needs to be a way of having Google identify all Web sites that are from out of the country. It would cut down on responses to scammers imensely if we knew they were from out of the country. Nobody is ever going to prosecute those type offenders. But they should have carry red flags. It would have been worse if the price was $500. Might even be more takers. ....
 
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Like the saying goes.... A sucker born every minute!! If anyone is dumb enough to believe this is legit I hate to see how well they fly a drone!
 
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Sounds like a lot of time and effort spent to lose $40, when you knew you were probably being scammed from the start. Cool that you tracked it down. Too bad you didnt SELL that service to some one and make a few hundred bucks.

Haha very true indeed! Maybe I should sell that service huh?

Got my money back from the bank, and you're right lot of time and effort for $40 but worth the hunt, figured from the start if it was true great if not happy hunting. See updated reply with final results this week.
 
Hello everyone,

I wanted to post this thread so that everyone is aware of an ongoing scam. You may see Ads of this via Google Ads when searching for specific keywords, or through other websites... so please beware and do not try to purchase a drone from these guys - it is a scam.

The Ad will show an advertisement stating something along the lines of a "24 Hour Sale", trying to sell a Mavic Pro at a "deep discount", for $40 USD. Other folks have reported something similar, at much less steeper discounts, for $200, $400, etc. Remember: If it's too good to be true, it usually is.

The e-commerce website is at: drones4you.myvolusion.com

They've setup a pretty simple website with a few fake products, of course the one being the most inciting the Mavic Pro for $40 USD. Then they'll collect your information, and your Credit Card information, process a payment through Stripe.com (a legitimate credit card processing vendor), and never ship out the product. Obviously, they are operating on a budget here and trying to get as many people as possible by spending some of the funds they collect on Google Adwords.

I personally wouldn't say I "fell" for this, since I used a virtual CC issued by my bank, and at $40 decided to take a chance without affecting my finances, and if it was a scam then I'd enjoy the hunt :)

They have a total of 52 subdomains under myvolusion.com, for various purposes, all leading to the same type of scam (see attached, "Subdomain Report.pdf"). All of them are being hosted via Amazon Web Services, and they're using a variety of different legitimate technologies to carry out this scheme, including:

  1. Google Adwords, to hook the victim after they search Google for specific keywords such as "DJI" - See attached screenshot for the specific Ad being posted.
  2. Stripe.com, for Credit Card processing.
  3. Godaddy.com, for the domain registration.
  4. Amazon Web Services, for hosting the website(s).
  5. Sendgrid.com, for email confirmations after creating an order.
  6. Google Gmail, [email protected] is being used as the email account to send via SendGrid.com for purchase confirmations.
I was able to find the contact information of the vendor from Stripe.com (the Credit Card processor), which reports a company called "CWC Marketing" as the primary contact for this account, at 478-365-0300. This number is a Verizon number, but that is either performing automatic call forwarding or is disconnected.

However, I created a web server on my personal hosting account, sent an SMS via my Twilio account with a link to the phone above stating something around the lines of "Stripe.com Alert - Customer Complaint, visit XXX link for more information", and did get a hit, so I logged the IP. The operator of this website is in Uruguay.

All of the information above has been reported to the proper authorities, including the FBI's IC3 complaint center, and all of the vendors listed above, to their respective abuse/fraud-related contacts.

Please be aware of this scam! Do not fall for this, and remember, if it's too good to be true, it is.

Update this week: After doing my part with the ISPs, and hosting company, etc. The website is down, yay! Success.

Turns out this person had 52 scam websites he or she was managing, plenty of them drone related with special offers, some for only 100-200 dollar discounts.

Ultimately found the scammer in Singapore, and alerted Singapore CERT and PD, so not Uruguay as I stated at first.

Again, be vigilant folks, ans buy your stuff only from authorized resellers, even if you see it as an Ad on a trusted platform like Google, this one slipped through the cracks.
 
Good work. It's nice to see somebody had the wherewithal to do the dirty work. When I saw the add I wasn't sure because I have bought things straight from China at rediculously low prices. Sadly I lack the knowledge you have to track down the offender. I actually decided it was a scam when I followed the 24 hour sale for 4 days, and it was still on! Lol. There really needs to be a way of having Google identify all Web sites that are from out of the country. It would cut down on responses to scammers imensely if we knew they were from out of the country. Nobody is ever going to prosecute those type offenders. But they should have carry red flags. It would have been worse if the price was $500. Might even be more takers. ....

Nice to know that you also saw that ad and were tracking it. Google definitely needs to do a better job at filtering these and confirming they're not scammers. I did get a reply from Google after submitting a complaint on TOS violation, and they opened a case so you shouldn't be seeing those anymore. Also did the same with Stripe.com which was used for CC processing and they shut down the account. This one was tricky because they were using legitimate services for everything, even had a Verizon number, in Singapore (not Uruguay as I stated at first).
 
Honestly, $40 for a Mavic? Obviously thats a scam. Why did you even bother with this?

Because this person had 52 websites scamming people for more credible prices, all advertised via Google Ads. I do cyber security for a living in fintech, so for me it's a hunt, and if there's anything that pisses me off is people robbing vulnerable people. This person had the infrastructure, and the funds, to have 52 similar operations going and all advertised through Google which is pretty costly, meaning his/her return on investment was significant enough by the number of uninformed people falling for this, to continue investing to scam people.
 
I counted 6 on my Facebook account. They even used the real mavic Pro adds as there videos but a couple places they messed up showing the mavic air camera but still talking about the pro . lol I sent a pm to one of them asking how they can sell a fly-more cheaper than one battery . Guess what — no response back to me . Lol
 
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Those scammers that are out to steal our hard earned cash with zero intent of ever shipping a product that they show should get the death penalty. I would not lose one minute of sleep for pushing the button that cooks them in a special chair
 
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