Container sales and leasing companies are falling prey to scammers passing themselves off as legitimate suppliers through the creation of bogus websites.
Barron Charsley, director at wholesale container solutions company Speedspace, told FTW they had been aware of website cloning and brand theft “for some time”.
He recalled an incident where a client phoned to ask about his container. “He said ‘I’ve paid you, now where is where my container.’ “Unfortunately we knew nothing about it but on closer inspection we found out that the company he had dealt with was called Speedy Spaces.”
Evidently the brand pirates are so good at using another company’s get-up through web-cloning that Speedy Spaces looked very similar to Speedspace. FTW phoned the contact numbers on the bogus site and neither of the two numbers on the landing page were answered.
Charsley said they were aware of at least five or six similar sites where clients were hoodwinked through a fairly professional approach to part up-front with money, only to find out they had been duped.
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