Lloyds Bank has established an industry working group, working with Chargebacks911 and other payment platforms, to report known fake websites when they arise and block transactions.
The formation of the working group comes as Lloyds warns of a proliferation of rogue retailers using fake websites to trick people into purchasing items that don’t arrive, driving a 211% increase in card payment disputes this year.
The bogus websites mimick popular brands such as House of Fraser, Office and Superdrug and use social media to promote significant discounts, luring people into making purchases.
The scam sites have cost victims £6.6 million so far this year, with credit and debit card customers losing £55 on average.
As well as scanning for and blocking fake website, the Lloyds Bank working group is also calling for acquirers to introduce tighter controls to make it more difficult for these rogue retailers to set up and take payments.
Lloyds says that some of the most common culprits of these scams include: SM Wallet, Fines Jewellery, Honest Concept Trading Hong Kong HKG, Ziniaofotec and Jimacy.
Gavin Evans, senior manager for consumer cards at Lloyds Bank, advises customers to check the web address if they are planning on making an online purchase, making sure it’s familiar and matches the brand they are trying to buy from. He says extra care should be taken if the shopper opened the website by clicking on an advert or social media post.
"If you don’t recognise the web address, apply extra caution by checking online reviews of the website and consider buying from somewhere you trust instead,” he says.