Online customers receive salt parcels from scammers

THE NATIONAL POLICE arrested three people on January 25, for making fraudulent offers to online customers over a fake website. 

Those arrested are reported to be a father, 52 and his two children, aged 29 and 32, who are accused selling electronic products on a legitimate-looking website, and then failing to deliver the actual items once the transaction was made. 

Mobile phones, game consoles and other hi-tech items were sold to customers who then received heavy parcels containing bricks, packets of salt or piles of pages. 

Police reports confirm that an investigation into the online scam began after an online shopper from Malaga made an official complaint and several customers in Alicante complained to a freight company which had delivered multiple parcels for the scammers.   

The website´s owners are reported to have successfully duped more than a dozen online shoppers nationwide and have attempted to defraud a further 36 customers who did not proceed to payment because they were warned by someone within the shipping company.  

The amount swindled from customers is thought to amount to more than €3,000.  The three persons detained will appear before magistrates in Alicante.