JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A recent Internet scam is luring online shoppers with the promise of a good deal, warns the Better Business Bureau.
The organization said The Closeout Center Inc. falsely claims to offer online customers toys, cosmetics and appliances at low prices on its website, closeoutcenter.com.
According to the Bureau, the consumers that reported the website made purchases ranging from $1,000 to $20,000, but never received their orders.
"The company says they're in Daytona Beach and the address they give is actually a Publix shopping center. Previously they were in Savannah and the address they gave was a restaurant, we've had 10 or 12 complaints on this in the last 5 days," said Tom Stephens, Executive Director of the Better Business Bureau.
Channel 4 met with Christopher Hamer, a local computer expert, to find out how these computer scams work and how the scammers get away with it.
"It is not a new domain, not set up yesterday," Hamer said. "You can set up an ecommerce...through anyone that processes credit cards."
Hamer helped track down the name of the operators of the web site to a company in Virginia with an office in South Florida.
Hamer said these scams are common, but there are things people can watch out for to avoid being the next victim.
"Spelling mistakes. Phrasing that's not linguistically accurate. Because if it's not set up by someone who's American or speaks English first they're probably going to make grammatical mistakes. The age old question of if it's too good to be true, it probably is," Hamer said.
For more information about the scam, visit the Better Business Bureau website.