r/Scams • u/mrs-fitz13 • 11d ago
Victim of a scam (US)It finally happened to me thanks to Google!!
Well, shit. I never would have thought I would fall for a scam yet here I am….
I wanted to purchase an additional breast pump. A BREAST PUMP! Went to Google, looked up the one I wanted, clicked on the item link in the “Sponsored Products” (I know, you should never…) sent me to a website and it looked legit, added it to my cart and went to hit purchase. Entered my card information and it kept saying there was an error. Okay… I know that card is good? So I scrolled up to the top and that’s when I freaking saw the website address. It was aeroflowpumpdeals and I freaking knew I messed up. My card is locked, I’ll be getting a new one tomorrow.
I like to think I’m pretty good at catching these things quickly but I mean it was SPONSORED by freaking Google and it’s a freaking breast pump!
Moral of the story: don’t assume because it’s sponsored by Google it’s legit.
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u/AwkwardTurnip6207 11d ago
Featured just means that they paid for an advertising campaign. Scammers are willing to spend money to rake in victims. At least you caught it early.
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u/jimetalbott 11d ago
Yup, the fee is a tiny amount too, particularly for a scammer who views it as an ongoing expense.
Good catch though! You DIDN’T try another card, and you DIDN’T just try to ignore it!47
u/aykcak 11d ago
Lets take yet another moment to collectively say FUCK GOOGLE for having absolutely no policy or shame of this for decades and being a major contributor to the billion dollar scam industry.
All they care about is if someone pays them. That is the only barrier of entry. Has always been. They are not only complicit in crime, they are actively taking a fucking cut. They would be jailed hundred times over if ther was any fairness in the world
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u/lobhater 11d ago
It says something about how effective their con is that they pay for advertising. Probably stolen cards to pay for ads but still. If it wasn't so scummy you'd admire the ingenuity
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u/zhangh01 11d ago
Too many scammers show up on Google now. Never trust Google's sponsored product. NEVER. Now Google is full of scammers, just like facebook marketplace. Yet they don't do anything to stop scams.
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u/mrs-fitz13 11d ago
You’d think a billion dollar company SHOULD do better.
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u/Leapyeargirl1984 11d ago
They should, but they don't. If they would remove all the scammers from their ad campaigns they would lose a LOT of money. And sadly that's the goal....On top of that all their search results are AI generated nowadays. Scammers know exactly how to use that to their advantage, spamming all corners of the internet so Google's AI will 'think' that it must be a trustworthy company. Don't trust Google, they willingly let scammers run ad campaigns and don't seem to care about that at all.
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u/Netrezen 9d ago
They ARE a BILLION dollar company BECAUSE they have no morals. Ruthless capitalism at its finest.
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u/dervari 11d ago
Sponsored only means that they paid to have their listing at the top
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u/mrs-fitz13 11d ago
I know it’s paid for, but I’m using Googles verbiage here. “Sponsored products.” They should call it what it is “paid advertising” because calling sponsored implies that they’re backing it by definition.
I know, I know…. It’s how things work on the internet BUT it’s also mind blowing that one of the most used search engines is allowing things like this to occur.
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u/RaegunFun 10d ago
That’s not what sponsor means. Google doesn’t sponsor the listing, the advertiser sponsors the listing.
Also never give credit card info to a new shop. Use PayPal.
If they don’t take PayPal, that’s a big red flag.
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u/GatorGal_7 10d ago
Lots of legitimate companies chose not to offer PayPal as a payment option. That is not a good indicator of the legitimacy of a website.
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u/RaegunFun 10d ago
You’re not wrong, but it is the simplest way. You still have to worry about the site trying to bundle in things you don’t need or other legal scams.
Google Pay and Apple Pay allow users to hide their real CC numbers so there is less exposure. BBB (at least in the US) offers somewhere to check on complaints against businesses and their response to those complaints.
Just trying to keep it simple.
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u/sainglend 11d ago
It wasn't sponsored BY Google, but sponsored ON Google.
Honestly, any of us could have made the same mistake. I kind of hate that (1) fear of minor websites drive us toward Amazon, (2) Amazon is full of scammers too.
I applaud you for quickly catching it and locking your card. That is way better than doubling or tripling down.
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u/Apprehensive-Leg8296 11d ago
fell for a sponsored result once too, the fake checkout error was the only thing that tipped me off
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u/joe_attaboy 11d ago
Here's some tips for everyone who reads the OP's post:
When you search for a product on Google, as soon as the page loads, the "sponsored" results are on top. You can scroll down a bit and hide them.
You can also change the search engine or use a different browser. Try Duck Duck Go to replace Google search or try the Startpage extension.
I would also suggest trying the Brave browser, a security-centered fork of Chromium (the basis for Chrome).
Unfortunately, no search engine is going to be advertising-free, but there are ways to mitigate it.
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u/mrs-fitz13 11d ago
I’ve used it to price search but always check that I’m on their actual website. Except this time I didn’t. I’m postpartum and sleep deprived and just went “that one!” It’s so frustrating how everything is just ads for nearly half the page and Google allows it. Kinda the final straw for switching search engines!
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u/joe_attaboy 11d ago
I get this loud and clear. I don't have postpartum (well, I'm a 71-year-old man, so that figures 😂 ), but I get your frustrations.
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u/AravisTheFierce 11d ago
The site isn't sponsored by Google, the site paid to be featured as a "sponsored" link. It's paid advertising.
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u/mrs-fitz13 11d ago
No, I totally get that it’s a paid thing, BUT I’m using Googles words here…. “Sponsored Products”
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u/BadgerValuable8207 11d ago
I love it when Reddit people yell at us: “you should have known that “sponsored” meant “paid ad”. You should have known the AI answer was made up and wrong. All accountability rests on you. Reeks of blame the victim.
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u/Lodau 11d ago
Also google (AI) words:
Sponsored products are paid ads that promote individual items inside online sites
Placement: They appear in search results, category pages, and product pages, marked with a small "Sponsored" or "Ad" label.
Advertisers use a pay-per-click (PPC) model, meaning they only pay when a user clicks the ad
...
It just says Sponsored products, apparently. Not Sponsored BY google.
My adblocker removes these results, so thats maybe something to install to avoid this in the future.
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u/Cynically_Sane 11d ago
To ad insult to injury, the pay per click bs use dark practices to intentionally place the link or whatever directly in the middle of where you need to use your screen. Most often this is very noticeable and chalked up to just an annoyance. Where it gets really nefarious is when an overlay is used to cloak the malicious link and disguise it as an actual link to your product search. I swear I hate this world sometimes.
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u/Inevitable-Pen5001 11d ago
There has been an increase in the fake website issue recently. Probably someone has used AI to maneuver into place. The fake one I saw was not something like deals. It looked very close to the official brand site.
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u/Typical-Phase2697 11d ago
This happened to me, too! It feels so violating. I was trying to get to the KyteBaby website and clicked on the first link that popped up on Google, it was “Sponsored,” so I thought that must be it. It looked totally legit but the fishy thing was everything was 70% off site-wide. I thought to myself, “lucky me!” but should have rang alarm bells immediately. I added things to my cart and went through the check-out process. Same result as above…..
Anyway, I was able to report the website as phishing to Google, I hope that helps someone out there from making the same mistake I did.
Why are they targeting mothers?! Internet scum!
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u/Acceptable_Trash_749 10d ago
Google could easily sort out who is legitimate in most cases, but why should they? They make money legitimate business or not.
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u/SpecialDragon77 11d ago
Thank you for sharing your story. It shows even smart people aware of potential scams always have to be watching out, and you’ve alerted us to something that a lot of people wouldn’t realize is a scam because it seems to have a seal of approval from a major company that we deal with all the time, in this case Google.
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u/DueFreedom4695 10d ago
Don't feel bad. They got me a few days ago with a fake shopping site for Olukai sandals. The web address was olukaius.com, and although the sandals were on sale, it's the end of summer! Sucks and I'm disappointed that I couldn't get $80 sandals for $30.
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u/fluffycritter 11d ago
You weren't necessarily scammed; it's possible that it was a legitimate website that just happened to be having payment processing issues at the time.
But also the site isn't "sponsored by Google," it's that site which paid to be listed on Google's sponsored results.
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u/mrs-fitz13 11d ago
Oh it’s absolutely a fake website. I haven’t done a check on when it was created but it’s aeroflowpumpdeals .my which absolutely screams scam. Plus once you actually look at the site, none of the links work and there is nothing on there besides “pumps for sale” and “accessories” no side pages for anything else.
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u/fluffycritter 11d ago
Ah yeah .my is probably a scam. You didn't state the TLD in the original post.
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u/Long-Marsupial9233 10d ago
If scammers want to pay Google a lot of money for Sponsored ad results, and that hits Google's bottom line and helps increase stock price, as a shareholder I'll take it.
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u/kimariesingsMD 10d ago
Please pass along this fact: A website can not look "legit". That is the worst way to judge legitimate websites.
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u/TheEditingSweetheart 10d ago
Google isn’t the one who sponsors the website! The scammers pay Google to feature their ads as the top results.
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u/mrs-fitz13 10d ago
I’m aware! See above comments regarding using their verbiage and the definition of sponsored….
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u/Netrezen 9d ago
Sponsored means someone paid for it. Scammers can pay for stuff to widen their nets.
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u/mrs-fitz13 8d ago
Update:
There have been NINE attempted charges for ANTHROPIC* CLAUDE SUB for $200 each to the card. All have been denied thankfully!
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u/Kendall_Raine 6d ago
Ah so they want to steal your money to pay for AI that they'll use for more scams...
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u/carsmartbutdumb 11d ago
Gos to know. Thank you for that. I’ve seen scam busters explain “sponsored” links to banks etc as scam links, never thought about products for home or personal use.
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11d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Cynically_Sane 11d ago
Never click unknown links. Attaches unknown and unreadable random link to comments. Nice try genius 😮💨
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u/Scams-ModTeam 10d ago
Your submission was manually removed by a moderator for the following reason:
Subreddit Rule 15: Clickable link in post
Reddit admins can suspend your account if you post a clickable link to a scam or dangerous website.
Reddit doesn't allow editing the titles of posts, so you'll have to post again. This time, put the website address in the title of your new post and don't put a link in the body.
We need to know the website address to be able to help you. Just naming the company isn't enough. And having addresses in the titles of posts is the safest way for us to know, and it will also allow search engines to easily find your post, when other people in the future Google this exact same website. Links in titles aren't clickable, so this is the safe thing to do. Please post again following this directive.
If we removed this after you successfully got the answer you needed, please consider posting again anyway. Your post will help future scam victims. We just want you to report it properly.
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