A SCOTS woman has issued a warning to online shoppers after a bizarre scam website attempted to withdraw £250 from her account.
Chell Moir had been trying to buy a rare Sylvanian Families toy on website giftgit.shop, when her payment of £23.99 failed to process, leading to her partner offering to pay instead.
However, when Chell, from Fife, logged into her banking app to transfer the funds, she noticed a withdrawal of £51.69 had been taken from her account – over twice her quoted price for the toy.
Horrified, the 35-year-old contacted her bank, whose fraud team noticed attempts to take four separate payments – adding up to over £250 – from a random taxi firm in England.
Upon first noticing the attempted withdrawal, Chell reached out to the apparent company via their live chat help option, to query why her account had been overcharged and with no confirmation email.
Chell claims the person on the other end of the exchange explained that the company would rectify the situation within the hour after she flagged up her concerns.
However, upon Googling the name that the transaction appeared under on her account – KIYANKIANI – Chell found that it was listed as a dissolved trader.
It was then that alarm bells started ringing for Chell, who promptly contacted her bank’s fraud team, who soon advised her of the four payments of £100, £51.69, £51.24 and £56 that had been requested from the scammers.
The only successful payment to have been taken from her account has now been refunded by the bank as a fraudulent transaction.
After doing some further digging Chell discovered that the details listed on the giftgit website appeared to be copied from Readers – an Isle of White family-owned furniture company.
The scam website appeared to have copy and pasted Readers’ privacy policy, delivery information and terms and conditions.
Chell took to social media on Sunday (23 July) to share screenshots of the webpage and her communication with the company, alongside a warning to other shoppers.
Her post read: “Warning: This page is a scam.
“They’ve set up Google Pay which I hadn’t agreed to. They’ve tried to take £51.24, then £100 then successfully took £52. My order was for £23!
“They are trading as KIYANKIANA which is a motor trade company – according to my bank it’s a taxi firm.
“The landline on their website is for a furniture store on the Isle of Wight.
“Please stay away from giftgit.shop. I’m now dealing with the fraud team because of them.”
Chell’s post has since received dozens of likes and comments from users quick to warn her themselves of the dangers of trusting sites like the one that came after her.
One user said: “Gift git? Alarm bells straight away.”
Another replied: “The name sounds dodgy to start with.”
A third added: “I’m sorry you have been scammed but live by this saying – if it’s too good to be true, it usually is.”
Another commented: “Oh dear, I hope you get some resolution and the fraud police can catch the b******s.”
Speaking today, Chell said: “I don’t want anyone else getting scammed, I’m just grateful I didn’t have my full wage in my current account.
“It was a Google-suggested website asking for Mastercard or Visa payment, to me it looked legitimate.”
“Things are tough enough as it is at this time with the cost-of-living crisis without people taking advantage.”
Furniture company Readers today said: “We have been made aware of the situation by a customer that tried to order something from the website. We have no affiliation with the website.”
