Non-delivery fraud are focused on individuals which are looking to buy some goods, often from the internet. The scam is very simple, yet almost undetectable, only detected after paying, and waiting for the goods to be delivered, but they never do.
Methods
The scams can be from a single scammer, to a more elaborate plans, such as, building a whole infrastructure in order to deceive the clients. From simple shopping websites to a whole team and a shipment tracking system that will build the trust of the client. The profits and the complexity range from small to large respectively.
This scam however cannot be pulled off solely from the criminal. The criminal must wait for a victim, that is, potential buyer to come to him. This is done mostly by advertising through ads on the internet or big online marketplaces, which single users can sell second hand goods. Although there is a possibility that the scammer can physically try to sell some goods to the person, it’s much harder, than to do it online.
Attacks
Based on the purchase sum, the scammers will take 2 paths.
Easier and simpler scams are used for not-so-expensive goods, and the scammer does not really care to take more money from the victim than stated, they can even deliver something to the client, except that the thing they deliver will be either stolen, or broken, or even just send a package that is filled with protective material and nothing inside.
The more expensive and elaborate scam is from criminal groups, which have a lot of people specialized into some aspect of the sell process. From the website creation, to the tracking system, to talking with the clients and pretending that the employees move the process from one department to another. In this scheme the scammers will try to get as much fees before actually telling the victim that the payment is on it’s way, simply because this scam is more elaborate, they might ask the victim for fees of any sort, such as packaging fees, warranty fees, shipping fees.
Both of those attacks will result in the victim realizing that he is being scammed, and the result to that is the scammers will cut off all ads, phone numbers, names and domains on which they host the websites. They will change for example their names, if they have a website they will change the domains and design, and so on, which makes the whole process pretty hard to track down.
Things to look out for
One sign that you’re trying to be scammed is if the other person selling something is requiring you to pay in advance. This of course is also used in many real scenarios, but based on the location, that is, either big marketplace, or custom websites for shopping, that you’ve never visited before could be a sign.
