Domain Monitoring Must Be Utilised by Brands to Prevent Customers Becoming Casualties of Online Fraud

More scammers are creating fraudulent websites through what could be called website cloning in the UK.

Unfortunately, both businesses and customers are suffering the most from the problem. Businesses suffer reputation problems and customers are tricked into paying for products or services that do not exist under your business name.

Thankfully, however, you should be able to protect your customers from becoming victims of fraud perpetrated by these heartless fraudsters. One of the ways is to invest in a reliable domain monitoring solution.

The UK is taking the hit by fraudsters as a nation with so many branded websites already cloned and used anonymously to perpetrate fraud. The worrying part of the story is that business owners may be unable to tell what precisely these scammers are doing with their brand identity. 

Of course, cybercriminals would do anything to defraud your customers. Some use credential harvesters to steal customers' credentials in your name. You would also receive strange complaints from customers on services you never handled, which can be heartbreaking.

Domain Fraud is Shutting Down the UK Economy

Is domain fraud shutting down the UK economy? These fraudsters negatively impacting your business means the UK as a whole is affected. Simple research by Skurio, which you can click here to see more information, reveals what the UK could be losing yearly.

Currently, fraud is costing the UK economy more than £176,000,0000 per year. Scammers are improving their game and carefully running riots on unsuspecting customers. Fortunately, when you invest in dark web monitoring and domain monitoring, you clamp down on these fraudulent activities. 

Many UK businesses are not informed about using domain monitoring solutions to take the fight against scammers and keep customers from losing money, and perhaps, refusing to return for business with your company.

Also, the UK’s national fraud and cybercrime reporting centre, Action Fraud, reports that over 2,000 Brits lose more than £4.6 million to coronavirus-related scams. Even during the pitiful lockdown, scammers still haunted customers and your business reputation.

Are There Attempts to Fight Domain Brand Fraud?

With so many attempts by cybercriminals to steal from customers under pretence, businesses need to protect their brand so that customers do not send their funds to the wrong hands. Such customers would always blame your business for a scammer misleading them.

Scammers are adopting regular scams, including email and SMS phishing to clone your website. Customers would be unable to tell the difference, except they pay closer attention to detail. Still, not many customers would be mindful, especially if the email looks catchy with your logo and domain name.

Many scamming domains are copycat websites that create or clone original sites and replicate everything you do on business sites. Some even invest time and resources in checking your updates to replicate them.

• Typosquatting. Some customers can mistakenly land on these fake domains when they make typos entering a business name on the web browser.
• Smishing. Smishing is a domain scam whereby fraudsters spam customers with malicious links leading to a replica website. Customers visiting these URLs are victimised in ways including compromising their details, credit card information, and more.

Fortunately, you can fight this attack on your business to safeguard customers to the fullest, which improves your integrity and reputation.

Can You Expect the Government to Help Out?

The government is giving fraud in the UK a fight to protect its economy. But is the government’s fight enough? The UK government announced the Online Safety Bill, focusing on in-app content. 

Unfortunately, it does not fight typosquatting to protect consumers from landing on fraudulent pages with phonetically and visually similar domains. This means that your organisation can’t rely on the government to protect your customers. 

The government does not have direct control over these scammers and their activities, so your company needs domain fraud solutions to handle the task.