A Norfolk woman said she was scammed out of £1,000 by a fake gold dealer pretending to be from Salisbury.
“Munday & Son’s Jewellery” has an online presence with pictures of its purported products that include gold chains and bracelets, with a contact page that lists its physical address as “1 1 the maltings, Salisbury, SP1 1BD” and displays an altered photo that purports to show its shopfront on The Maltings at the old Hat Shop location.
The mother of three from Norfolk who fell victim to the scam said she found a posting from “Munday & Son’s” on Facebook Marketplace and was subsequently scammed out of £1,000.
She had ordered gold jewellery off Marketplace before and received legitimate products.
The victim (who asked not to be named as the scammer has her address details which were provided for delivery) said: “Now that I look at [the photo of the shopfront], you can obviously tell that it’s photoshopped.
“He makes it all look properly legitimate. When he delivered it it was in a bag with the shop logo on it and proper receipts and certificates.”
It wasn’t until she was in a hot tub a week later and the fake gold coating started to come off, that she discovered the Cuban link bracelet she had purchased from “Munday & Son’s” was fraudulent.
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The Norfolk mother later got in contact with another victim of “Munday & Son’s” in Essex who had been scammed out of £3,000 and traded real gold for her product from “Munday & Son’s.”
She said: “He posts this in Birmingham, Sheffield, London, everywhere. So it’s not just happening where I am. He’s travelling everywhere and selling it to loads of different people.”
The victim said she was initially sceptical of why a Salisbury shop would be posting in the Norfolk section Facebook Marketplace, but the “shop owner” subsequently explained that the company shipped products across the country.
She said: “The things that he said sounded like it was a legitimate seller. I know people scam all the time, but this guy is good.
“This guy went to extreme links to sell a bit of fake gold.”
Wiltshire Council has said since having the issue was brought to its attention, the Public Protection team would be taking action.
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Councillor Nick Holder said: “Our Public Protection officers have now visited the premises shown in the photograph on the website and established that the photograph is a fake and that the premises are currently empty.
“We will be contacting the National Trading Standards eCrime to request the website is taken down and will also try to contact the people behind the website.
“Our advice to anyone looking to engage with an online business which they haven’t used before, we would be to take some time to research reviews of the business through a trusted site. This will assist in identifying how long a business has been trading and whether they operate fairly.”
Munday & Son's was unable to be reached for comment.
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