To make instant money is the motive that motivates scammers create fake websites, YouTube channels and find several other ways of fraud, while keeping brand name at stake. The latest pursuit of these quick money makers is related with leading headphones and speakers firm boAt Lifestyle. Amidst the fast changing lifestyle of consumers, there has been a sharp increase in the adoption of smartphones that have made life easier.
But with increasing smartphone usage, smartphone accessories are also in huge trend. It includes headphones, speakers, earphones, smartwatches and etc. These gadgets are being designed with strong focus on enhancing the overall usage experience of the consumers. But the counterfeit products available in the market spoil the experience and put a negative brand image among customers.
Smartphone accessories are the biggest target market for counterfeit product sellers. These products are easily available in offline and offline market where customers face difficulty in identifying the original products. This is where the fraudsters take lead and sell fake products. boAt is a leading smartphone accessories brand and its fake products are also being sold in the market. Taking notice of this threat, boAt’s Co-founder & CMO Aman Gupta has shared a post on his social media account.
His post titled “Important News” and addressed the users for an important announcement. In his post, he broke the news of catching “multiple fake websites claiming to sell “original boAt products.”
The post took opportunity “to inform” the users about its “only official brand” www.boat-lifestyle.com, “along with authorized channels” who sale original boAt products. He also warned the users saying “beware of any other counterfeit websites” to ensure people who trust boAt should reach out to the right place for their order and do not get trapped into fraudsters scams.
Later, Aman Gupta requested the mass to use URL carefully and also, he apologized “for any inconvenience caused.” Alongside, he encouraged boAt users “to report any counterfeit websites” they “come across on email address: cyberfraudhelpline@imaginemarketingindia.com”.
But as understood, LinkedIn is a professional’ website, his followers include corporate world’s biggest executives. They reverted back to his post with great suggestions one after another, that is certainly worth discussing. Among them, Rajvir Singh Kahlon, Senior Consultant at Oracle, who seem to be complaining about boAt website domain which he considered “not unique enough to get easily differentiated from fake websites.” Also, he suggested Aman Gupta to “get a better and unique domain” such as, boat.com or a boat.in etc to make things easy for the consumer as well :)”
One of the followers was Nishant Aggarwal stressed him on to “get the QR codes printed on every packet and put all the QR related information on your website for your customers to check if the product they are buying is a genuine or a copy product.”
Sagar Gilhotra, Partner Development Manager at Google elaborated his suggestion in detail, “boAt can put a special code on each product, along with a small square QR box that customers can scan using their phones. Once scanned, the website will ask for the code associated with the product. If the code is correct, the website will confirm that the product is real, but if the code is not recognized, the website will tell you that the product is fake. In case the product is fake, the website will show you a form where user can fill in the details of the seller from whom you purchased the product. This information will help boAt track down and take action against the sellers of fake products.”
Rahul Soni, an Automotive Engineer told about “boat user experience centre nearby where” users “can compare the quality and performance physically between original and fake.. Introducing unique way of pairing and charging boat devices to unique compatibilies keeping other standards constant. Such things might create boat eco system strong and easily identify original vs fake ones Or App based identification Something called "Boat Sense.””
Among them, Shyamsundar Darji, Escrow Assistant Manager, Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited informed Mr Aman Gupta about another fraud website https://www.boatsoundmusic.com/collections/home-audio selling boAt products at ₹299.00. Several other followers informed about their difficulty facing multiple fake websites such as, https://soundmusic.in/, https://boatstores.in/, Boatshoppy.in are to name a few. They also suggested strict action against these fraud scammers.
