Where to report scam website?

Scams
1

I ordered an item (set of scales and weights) from a website (hshisha.com.au) on 30th Feb 2017. After not hearing from them for a week I emailed and sent an SMS to the contact details on the website. No reply. I’ve repeated this a couple more times and still no response. On their website, my order shows as Pending.

I have since searched the web for others’ experiences and have found about 6 other people who also report having bought something on this website and never received goods.

To track down the owners, I looked up the WhoIs data for the site: Private registration, owned by Tabbu P/L ACN: 153 118 90

Then I looked up the ACN and found that the company was deregistered in 2014:
TABUU GROUP PTY LTD
ACN: 153 118 908
ABN: 84 153 118 908 (External Link)
Registration date: 8/09/2011
Next review date: 8/09/2014
Status: Deregistered
Date deregistered: 3/02/2014

My concern is that this is effectively a fraudulent website owned by a non-existent company. They only take payment by bank deposit, so customers have no recourse. The domain should be rescinded and website closed.
The owners are committing fraud and getting away with it indefinitely.

I don’t expect to get my money back (thankfully only a small amount), but it seems crazy that this mob have been able to keep a scam website going for 3 years! To whom can I report this? (I’ve looked at ASIC and ACCC websites–neither seems very helpful).

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Hi @jen,

https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/report-a-scam doesn’t do much, but it is what government provides - I have found it somewhere beyond useless. When the ATO fraudsters were in full operation government was not interested in having the known NSW phone numbers/services revoked or tracking down the perps, they just issued PR to be careful of the scammers.

Anyway, you will find “Online Shopping” as a category for complaint.

Although domain registries are not internet police, this mob is registered by crazydomains.com.au (https://www.crazydomains.com.au/) who might provide info on how you might progress.

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Hi @jen,

Pinging their website indicates that their IP address is 192.124.249.15. The results of the ping I just did are as follow:

C:\Users\XXXX>ping hshisha.com.au

Pinging hshisha.com.au [XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.124.249.15: bytes=32 time=301ms TTL=53
Reply from 192.124.249.15: bytes=32 time=305ms TTL=53
Reply from 192.124.249.15: bytes=32 time=301ms TTL=53
Reply from 192.124.249.15: bytes=32 time=300ms TTL=53

Ping statistics for 192.124.249.15:
_ Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),_
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
_ Minimum = 300ms, Maximum = 305ms, Average = 301ms_

Doing a IP search, this IP appears to be hosted in or traffic directed through Canada. If the website is in Canada, it may be very difficult for any action to be taken in Australia. It is also worth noting that their advertisements on Youtube has a person with a north American accent.

Also checked WhoIS and the last update for webname registration is 08-Aug-2016. The name could have been registered years before this date when TABUU GROUP PTY LTD was trading and someone has maintained the webname registration since without changing the application details. This can be done from overseas.

I would suspect that the website is not being hosted in Australia and the company is also based overseas, but using a local XXX.com.au to make it appear to be more genuine and reliable.

It appears that ASIC initiated the deregistration of their business name in December 2013…and this notice comes under their insolvency notice section.

Even though the company appears to have been insolvent prior to 3 December 2013, such insolvencies don’t prevent owners retaining names used by the insolvent businesses for future use.

Their twitter account has been suspended.

What is also interesting, a few websites indicate the company is ‘located’ in Melbourne, but the website indicates that they sell ‘bongs’. In most states in Australia (inc. Victoria) I understand that the display and sale of drug paraphernalia (which includes bongs) is prohibited. This again raises the authenticity of the website and whether it is actually located in Australia.

I always get very nervous when someone ask payment using direct deposits as it automatically rings the alarm bells…and especially when their website states "Payments from regular users online can be carried out via PayPal or alternatively through a direct credit card transaction. Hshisha frequently offers promotions and special offers to our customers and clients. For new products, price specials and up to date information on Hshisha customers are encouraged to subscribe to our E-News letter. Hshisha reserves the right to alter prices when necessary.

and then says

NOTE :

Hshisha is regret to say that we no longer able to accept payments from PAYPAL , due to the nature of the business and items we offering for sale on our website ,paypal policy do not support this items we selling under their policy . Hshisha is regret to say that we no longer able to accept payments from PAYPAL , due to the nature of the business and items we offering for sale on our website ,paypal policy do not support this items we selling under their policy."

It would be interesting to know if the business had an Australian bank account…namely a BSB and account number to allow the direct debit.

If the company has an Australian bank account, it may be possible to lodge a complaint with the police for the sale of drug paraphernalia. The police can place a hold on the account, search and find out who owns the bank account. It may also be ultimately closed down. Their cyber crime unit may also be interested…but may not as they might be trying to chase bigger fish.

It is also worth noting that having an Australian Bank account does not mean that the company is based in Australia as one can set up an Australian bank account when in Australia, then access it from overseas for funds transfers to a foreign account.

Hope this helps but suspect that you may not see you money again. Hope it wasn’t too much.

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That’s Internet code for “run away as fast as your feet will carry you”.

Never send money to a site that won’t accept Paypal or credit card. Ever.

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Thanks for those suggestions @PhilT

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You’re right @Fred, and I’m usually wise to scammers, and check company/website reviews before a purchase as well.
I had been looking for a particular set of scales (for my dyeing hobby) and finally found them in stock on this site, and it went to my head!

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Thanks @phbriggs2000–very thorough and helpful!

I do have an Australian bank account for them and I could speak to the bank.
I could also report them to the police for selling bongs etc. although they could just remove those items from the site and continue to offer other legal items.

I don’t see the hosting as a definite indicator of residence–my own websites are hosted in the USA, simply because I got a good deal from a hosting company.

I also noticed that ABN lists the main business location as NSW 2200 (Bankstown area), and they were registered for GST until Dec 2013. So maybe it was an active Australian business until then, and they just left the website as is, taking orders that are never fulfilled.

I only lost $50, but I hate the idea of the website being allowed to stay active indefinitely.’ Of course you’re right about payment by bank deposit. As I mentioned in my post above, I lost my head!

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Hi @jen,

The registered address of the business does not necessarily have to to be operating premises. It could be an accountant, a lawyer’s office, a home address or any other address whereby the ABN/ACN holder can receive government/agency notices.

It may be worth going to the police (you would have enough information on the scammer for them to follow up further) as the closure of a scammer’s bank account would be a significant nuisance to them, especially if they are in fact based overseas and using the Australian account to transfer money out of the country. This would in effect shut down their operation and make it difficult/costly to open another Australian account.

If they are based in Australia, the police would most likely knock on their door about scamming and selling drug paraphernalia.

I hope that my previous post didn’t give the idea that you were using the balance for mischievous purposes…it wasn’t intended to. I was just looking at ways to maybe stop their activities.

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No problem, my skin’s pretty thick!

Sounds like the police could be a worthwhile first port of call. I’ll print out everything relevant and drop it on them!

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Any updates? We need closure :wink:

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When I finally got organised to report them, the website was already gone.
So I guess someone beat me to it.

And I found some scales on another site. Not as cheap though :slight_smile:

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Was that after May 2019? Maybe you were blocked?

See https://web.archive.org/web/20190615000000*/https://hshisha.com.au/

UPDATE: The above link was the last date an archive was saved on Internet Archive. Before that there were 126 saved archives between 2016 and 2019.

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That’s possible. I had moved house in between so I guess it’s possible it was that long afterwards

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No longer on whois

Really this also looks like an auDA bug. As soon as the company was deregistered they ought to have lost the right to register the domain, and so the domain would not be registered any more. Based on the OP, the domain was still registered 3 years after it should not have been. (Given the time elapsed now, it is possible that auDA has improved their procedures in the meantime.)

This has nothing to do with whether the company is a scam. The same would apply if the company simply shut itself down.

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Well AUDA could enforce it’s regulation’s better but I guess there’s a business opportunity for a domain registrar or website flipper or grey SEO company.

Based on Internet Archive it was still registered in 2019 five years after it should have been.

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