Posted 7 days ago

Phoney hotukdeals websites

Anyone else noticed fake hotukdeal websites appearing in their search results, where they've cloned the hotukdeal banner and footer and the layout, but usually a bit misaligned, and other formatting errors.

They seem to be getting more common. Found at least 4 just today.

Here's one example (I've deliberately left off the https, to avoid boosting their search results)

pendeenhotel.co.uk/deals
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  1. joyf4536's avatar
    Why are you searching for hotukdeals, it should be your homepage.
    melted's avatar
    Author
    I wasn't, something on the page must have partially matched my search.

    And no, hotukdeals is not my homepage
  2. Roger_Irrelevant's avatar
    Try locking your browser down with uBlock origin, you'll probably find they're not search results but ads or other unwanted .

    Browsing without uBlock Origin:

    51630201-ie0kI.jpg
  3. andrewworrall1's avatar
    My Mum was on one last night. I saw her about to purchase something directly on the fake hotukdeals website and I managed to stop her. The web address was a dead giveaway that it's a scam when I saw it too.
  4. melted's avatar
    Author
    In case hukd want to try to get some of the sites taken down, here's three more domains: chilversmccrea hendersonsstirling timberlinefurniture


    (add .co.uk/deals)
    melted's avatar
    Author
    Another: angelrow
  5. HonourableGentleman's avatar
    £7.475 as the price was a giveaway - not seen this before, well done for hunting them down! (edited)
  6. cheekyweegit's avatar
    This possibly explains the misaligned screen for hotukdeals on my mobile, it's been bugging me for a week now.

    Even when typing the address into the address bar it's misaligned, I've a white bar down the side where my settings cog is another settings thing is and my avitar. No matter what I do, I can't get the page to go back to normal, any suggestions ?
  7. melted's avatar
    Author
    Yeah, they seem to be using abandoned web domains, presumably to boost their search results.

    The pages I checked all direct their victims to the same domain to request payment details, so that would be a good site to block, or report hotukdeals-promo.d100ok.com/che…der


    In a previous scam I came across, the scammers appeared to just be after people's hotukdeals login details.
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