Met Police shuts down fraudulent e-commerce sites

The Met is clamping down on scam shopping sites

The Metropolitan Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) has had over 1,200 web sites deregistered as part of an operation to combat fraud.

The sites all claimed to sell designer goods such as Ugg boots or jewellery at bargain prices, but shoppers either did not receive the items or were given counterfeit goods.

Customers also ran the risk of having their identity information harvested and misused elsewhere, according to the PCeU.

The organisation worked with .uk registry Nominet to cut off the domain names at a registry level so that they cannot be re-registered in the future.

Lesley Cowley, chief executive of Nominet, explained that the company had worked closely with the PCeU to shut down access to the sites.

"The vast majority of .co.uk domains are legitimate, but where there are investigations about improper or illegal activity we work with law enforcement bodies to help identify and limit fake or illegal web sites," she said.

Officers were also helped by Consumer Direct, Trading Standards, the Office of Fair Trading and manufacturers to identify the fraudulent sites.

Most were registered from Asia using false or misleading details which made it very difficult for victims to complain about undelivered or counterfeit goods.

The PCeU is also working with Nominet and other domain name registries in an effort to prevent future registrations being made using fake or misleading details.