Bed Bath & Beyond declared bankruptcy and closed its physical stores in recent months. It was then acquired by furniture and home furnishings e-retailer Overstock.com, a BBB Accredited Business, which rebranded its website and mobile app to Bed Bath & Beyond in the U.S. in early August.
Scammers are taking advantage of the big changes by targeting unsuspecting consumers with fake going- out-of-business sales. Here’s what you need to know to spot the scam.
How the scam works
You see an online ad on social media for massively marked-down Bed Bath & Beyond products. It’s a going-out-of-business sale, and the prices are too good. The website you are directed to looks legitimate, with the Bed Bath & Beyond logo and product information.
However, a closer look at the domain name or email address reveals you aren’t on the official website.
Shoppers report making purchases and never receiving the products they ordered. Emails to the impostor company typically go unanswered. However, in some cases, the scammers reply, only to state the product was accidentally delivered to another state – an issue they should take up with the U.S. Postal Service. In reality, the website was fake, and the discounted products never existed.
How to prevent the scam
To avoid the Bed Bath & Beyond scam, as well as similar scams:
• Always double-check the URL. Scammers love to build fake websites that look like the real thing. Often, the URL is only off by a letter or two. Take a moment to ensure you are on the official website by looking closely at the URL. Bed Bath & Beyond’s official websites are bedbathandbeyond.com in the U.S. and bedbathandbeyond.ca in Canada.
• Go directly to the official website instead of clicking ad links. Con artists can make ads claiming to be legitimate businesses, but the link takes you to a completely different website. Look up deals featured in ads by typing the URL of the business directly in the browser bar instead of clicking through an ad. If you can’t find the special deal anywhere, the ad may have been a
fake.
For more information on preventing and reporting scams, visit bbb.org.
