Fraudulent sites promoted by Instagram accounts with several hundred thousand subscribers
Whether in their Stories or their description, accounts, some of which exceed 300,000 subscribers, highlight misleading e-commerce sites, such as sneakerline.fr or shilder.com.
"It's a crazy thing !" On an Instagram story published at the end of October and since disappeared, an account followed by more than 384,000 subscribers promotes the sneakerline.fr site. Air Jordans at 1440 € which go to 115 € during the validation of the basket because of a "bug": the story is tempting. Only problem: the company behind this site does not exist.
At first glance, the sneakerline.fr site looks perfectly legitimate. Polished home page, promises of free delivery and secure payment, "authentic" products... and even a "Legal notice" page. But, first surprising element, the text affirms that the company is registered with the RCS number 527 403 572... which does not exist at the time of writing this article, according to the Infogreffe.com site which lists the companies recorded. And no results either if you search for the name "sneakerline".
The site is filled with these questionable elements: the telephone number referenced as contact ("+331440670") is incomplete. The "Our concept" page has been completely copied and pasted from a real shoe sales site, wethenew.com. Contacted by email, the site managers have not yet responded.
At the time of writing this article, the site link still appears in the biography of the Instagram account @_dieuofficiel, which only reuses the contents of the humorous Twitter account @_dieuoff. Contacted, the owner of the original Twitter account assures Tech&Co that he has no connection with this Instagram account, and that his real Instagram account is also @_dieuoff. He denounces the accounts that have been using his content for several years now, and explains that he considered legal proceedings against several of them, before giving up.
