Problems anyone: dublin-bicycle.info website

fun_gav

Hi, wondered did anyone have any dealings with a website www.dublin-bicycle.info ?

I posted an add for my bike on it and have been getting spam and phishing emails as replies to the add. I got one first of all that was suspicious but then an okay reply came that I answered which led to what appeared to be a dodgy phishing attempt. And since I answered the seemingly okay one, my spam has increased, ie. is suddenly getting through gmail...

The 'about us' section to the site is a dead link, and the link to delete your add is also redundant. Does anyone know anything about the site? Might be an idea to warn people about it. It seems at worst dodgy, at best badly run.

Hmmm...

blorg

Looks like a pretty generic website set up to make some money off Google AdWords. Comes up #1 in Google for a search "dublin bicycle" and he has a fair few ads so seems to be working for whoever put it together.

To be honest if you have an ad on the internet with an easy way for third parties to contact you, you are going to have scammers contact you. This is not the fault of the website you are advertising on. You have to have a little cop on yourself about what is a scam. That site seems to hide your own email address but when you replied the third party has it and can do what they like with it...

Some sites like boards/adverts.ie require account creation before a buyer can contact a seller and everything goes through their system by PM. So they offer a little more protection in that regard- I would advise you try to sell your bike there.

fun_gav

Thanks blorg, I accept that you have to be aware, I did do a search prior to using it to see if anyone had anything to say about it but there was nothing.

To the uninitiated like myself the site appears to be a bike enthusiasts site, and as you say it comes up at the top of searches, but on closer inspection the 'news' section is just a feed to celeb news(!) - no bike news - and as I say the 'about' link is dead, plus the delete ad function doesn't work.

So while you're right it's not the fault of the website as to who contacts you, I reckon it's just good to get a discussion up online as to possible problems with this site for potential users.

blorg

Yes, it is a completely generic site thrown up to make some money off AdWords, whoever did it probably looks at the search results and registers domains where he sees an opening, for whatever sort of product in whatever country or city. My point is simply, I don't think the site itself is fraudulent, it is the people contacting you... and the same people could (and probably would) be contacting you through donedeal, gumtree or whatever.

fun_gav

No - using Gumtree posed no such problems. Further, I didn't call the site fraudulent at any point, just dodgy - that it seems badly run, not especially interested in bikes, and incurs phishing and spam, unlike my experience of Gumtree. My point is simply that these things should be made known to folk who might think about using it.

Victor

Interesting that many of the bikes have been photographed in the same two rooms.