Website Enquiries - What's The Scam?

[BusterBloodvessel]

So we quite regularly get enquiries through the form on our website, where the user has selected "sales enquiry". And they all follow the same format - they're not absolutely identical, but very similar. That being;

1. The message is obviously generic and could be sent to anyone, doesn't mention us or our range specifically. "Good morning Sir/Madam, My name is <***> at <typically a random company name e.g. HRX Enterprise or LM Solutions>. We are a large eCommerce and wholesale business with a strong presence across multiple sales channels.We are interested in exploring a potential partnership with your company and would like to inquire about the process for opening a trade account. We believe that your products would be a valuable addition to our offerings, and we are eager to learn more about the necessary steps and requirements.

2. The website is typically an off the shelf e-commerce website with a baffling mix of products with no depth - e.g. "Kitchen accessories" might list one food mixer and one spatula. Then they'll have "car accessories" with a tow rope and an air freshener, quite often there'll be random clothing on there, all on the same site.

3. The website is usually unfinished, you'll find paragraphs of lorem ipsum dolor placeholder text

4. The company name typically lists an LLC company in the USA which when you google it returns no results.

5. The company name bears no relevance to the site name (not uncommon perhaps trading name v domain name) but the company name might be "Retail Gurus LLC" with the website branded under "OnlineMall2Go"

So all in all, seems dodgy. But what I can't understand is, in the past (through naivety/curiosity/under duress) I have reached out with a pretty basic "Thanks for your enquiry, we would be delighted to help you further, what product lines are you interested in" type email. I had got to the point of just ignoring these types of mail but a new starter has also started replying to them recently until I've pointed out the warning signs and told her to delete them too!

But in every single case..... there's never a reply. I was expecting a "yes we'd like to place an order for 50,000 of x item" and so the scam would begin whether it's trying to get us to ship it before paying, or ship free samples, or pay them for something, whatever.... I assumed these dodgy emails and dodgy sites are the start of SOMETHING to hook you in, make you feel like you're on the verge of a big order and then hit you with something to scam you. I remember years ago regularly getting one where the "order was confirmed but you have to pay the registration fee to go on our supplier portal to cover the cost of our supplier background checks" type thing.

But here...NOTHING. Every single email to them has been blanked. So what exactly is the scam??!?!? Or at the very least the motive behind these random half built sites and generic sales enquiries. Am I missing something?!

 

[NickGrogan]

You can fill out millions of forms for next to nothing; people reply with real working emails, names, positions, phone numbers, etc, in their signatures.

Sell that data to spammers.

People who'll reply to badly written form responses are probably more likely to reply to other dodgy emails or download malware.

 

[Mark T Jones]

I also get millions of them.

My guess is that these people are buying into some scheme 'guaranteeing' to get them in front of thousands of people

 

[fisicx]

Two main reasons:

Affiliate sales - the sender gets 50p if you click on the link.

Phishing - they want to confirm the email address is legit so they can sell on your data

Or a possible third:

They are just useless at marketing.

 

[japancool]

I've had these in exactly the same format. They go into the trash.

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

Thanks for all the replies, all of the above explanations seem plausible although yes I agree the harvesting of names/contact info from a simple email signature seems the most likely!

 

[NickGrogan]

Just a thought, but it could get you around GDPR as well.

The first email came from them, so I think replying couldn't breach GDPR.

Hopefully, someone more knowledgeable about this will tell me if I'm wrong.

 

[TimP]

Very frustrating as they arrive via your enquiry forms meaning you cannot mark as spam. My guess was similar to yours; expecting to receive a big order that required the seller to pay something in order for the buyer to purchase - similar to old fashioned scams saying a distant relative had died leaving unclaimed assets which could be yours if you pay a “fee” upfront to release them. I have never responded so don’t know the answer. Interesting question though.