'I was getting up to six calls a day from angry people looking for their Lego'

A man from Lanark has revealed that he received dozens of calls over a three week period after his home address was used as a fake headquarters by scammers selling fake toys.

The website claims to sell Lego at discount prices.

Software developer Graham Jack, who lives with his family on a residential housing estate in the town, was initially baffled when he started answering phone calls from people telling him they had not yet received toys they had ordered.

The calls were from angry customers who had bought Christmas toys from a website selling what appeared to be Lego sets and Barbie dolls at bargain prices for Black Friday. The site, www.plymouth-subaru.co.uk, is, however, a scam, tricking people into paying out hundreds of pounds for online orders only to find that their goods never turn up.

He looked at the website to find that his home address – on Muir Glen in Lanark – is listed as the website’s headquarters.

The scam site lists Mr Jack's address as its office.

Although a fake mobile number is published as the website’s main contact, customers looking for the goods they had paid for had found Mr Jack’s landline phone number connected to his home address on other websites legitimately advertising his business, software development company Hungry Fox. It is not believed that the Lanarkshire address is linked to the scam in any way. Fraudsters often select addresses from other websites at random in a bid to make their operation appear more authentic.

“At one point a couple of weeks ago, I was getting around six phone calls every day,” he said. “Every time the phone rang, it was someone wanting to complain about plymouth-subaru.co.uk, asking where their Lego was. When I explained I had nothing to do with it, most of them were understanding, but some were still angry.”

He believes the scammers selected his address at random, just as they chose to piggyback their website on an unused web domain owned by a car dealership in Plymouth.

He added: “I run a software company, I don’t have much to do with Lego. It has been a bit of a nightmare.”

He reported the scam to Police Scotland, but was told that he could not be classed as a victim, as he was not a customer of the website.

He said: “I don’t know what else I can do about it. It has slowed down a little in the past week, but before that, I was getting about half a dozen calls a day. The police have taken details, but they said that as I’m not technically a victim of the scam, it’s difficult for them to do anything. They told me to get the people who were phoning me who had lost their money to report it.”

Police Scotland has confirmed that it had received a report that a company selling toys was fraudulently using contact details from a property in Lanark. Officers are investigating the incident.

A spokesman said: “Enquiries are at an early stage and ongoing.”

Some customers said they had noticed the payments going out of their bank accounts to business accounts registered abroad. Others said they had received a tracking email for their parcel, only to find it was allegedly delivered to an American address.

One Edinburgh parent said she had almost been duped by the company, until she noticed spelling and grammar mistakes on the website, which prompted her to search for reviews online, where she discovered that other families had been swindled out of hundreds of pounds.

She said: “I was looking for Black Friday deals on Lego for my daughter's Christmas present and these were among the first sites that popped up on Google. I hadn't heard of them before, but they looked professional and some of the offers were really good: big Lego sets which usually sell for around £100 reduced to £45. I was almost about to buy one, then I noticed a line on the site that said: ‘You can submitting a ticket via contact form’.

“It rang alarm bells, so I decided to see if anyone had reviewed it and found it had a two star rating on Trustpilot, with everyone saying that they hadn't received their orders. It was lucky I did that, or I might have lost a lot of money.”

Scottish shopper Liz Mitchell wrote on the Trustpilot website: “I have ordered Lego and LOLs from this website after being directed there by Google, and received a tracking email that was fake and says my items have been delivered in California – I live in Scotland. I have tried the phone number but it doesn’t exist, and I have had no responses to my many emails. Really couldn’t afford to lose money like this at Christmas. A horrible scamming company, don’t trust or use.”

Fiona Richardson, chief officer of Trading Standards Scotland said: “Throughout the pandemic, consumers across Scotland have fallen victim to online scammers who set up fake websites or stores on online marketplaces in an attempt to steal their personal and financial details. For many people, budgets will be particularly tight this year and it can be tempting to click on a social media advert or unfamiliar website offering deals on big brands or in-demand items.”

Some customers of sister scam site Willowbooks.co.uk, which claims to be based in London and shares a customer service email with Plymouth-subaru.co.uk, said they had been sent a single pair of socks in lieu of their order. A third site, apricotpenguin.co.uk, which lists its business address at a residential property in Reading, also appears to have links to the Scotland-based business.

The phone number for Plymouth-subaru.co.uk does not appear to be in service, while emails to the customer service address have gone unanswered.

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