Fraudulent online shop conned dozens of Czechs, selling PlayStations at almost half price

Dozens of people across Czechia have fallen victim to the online shop Eskshop.cz, which lured customers with suspiciously cheap electronics and then simply stopped responding. Victims have turned up all over the country, and some have already gone to the police.

Moderator and event producer Michal Šeda decided last weekend to quickly buy his son a PlayStation 5 and came across an offer for 8,990 crowns — while the console normally costs around 14,000. The shop was also offering the iPhone 15 with 128 GB for 9,893 crowns, against a market price of over 16,000. "The price was lower than anywhere else. I checked the reviews — they were good, so I figured everything would be fine," he says. After paying by bank transfer, he grew suspicious three days later when the seller went completely silent — and it turned out many other buyers had run into the same shop.

Bank transfer only — a red flag

The scammers' key trick was that the goods could only be ordered via bank transfer, with no cash-on-delivery option. "If an online shop only accepts payment by transfer, that alone is already suspicious," warns Miloslav Lujka, co-founder of the cybersecurity firm Digitální pevnost. In such cases, he advises checking the shop using artificial intelligence tools designed to spot signs of fraud.

The criminals also hijacked someone else's identity — that of a real company based in Ostrava, ESK Elektro Ostrava. While it was still online, the Eskshop.cz website referenced the company in its contact details, terms of purchase, and privacy policy section, and the domain itself, according to available information, was registered under the name of the company's director. "People keep calling us and accusing us of not delivering their goods. We explain that we're in the same situation as them — our identity was stolen, and we've filed a police report," says Petr Kupec, one of the directors of ESK Elektro Ostrava.

Competitors spotted the fraud

The company learned about the fake shop around the same time Michal Šeda was trying to buy his console — they were tipped off by Adam Koudela, co-founder of the cybersecurity firm XEVOS Solutions. His analytical systems, which track competitors' prices, flagged a suspiciously cheap offer with no equivalent anywhere else on the market. "When something appears significantly cheaper and nobody else offers anything like it, we start digging into the shop's details and its history," Koudela explains.

It turned out the shop's terms of purchase had been copied wholesale, there was no option to pay by card or cash-on-delivery (both of which allow for refunds), and the account customers were asked to transfer money to had already appeared on forums where users share their experiences with scammers. "That pushed the probability of fraud up to 99 percent. Then I confirmed with someone from the real company that this wasn't their business," he adds. Kupec confirms this: "We were warned. Our staff checked and found a massive problem — obviously, we don't do anything like this. We had no idea so many people had already placed orders." According to him, the company works in energy, building transformer substations and grids, and has nothing to do with selling electronics.

The site kept running for several more days

As early as Monday, August 24, the Ostrava company's management went to the police. "We're waiting for the police to issue a ruling to take the site down and freeze the account. But so far, unfortunately, it hasn't happened," Kupec said on Wednesday, adding that he was trying to speed up the process. Adam Koudela also criticized the fact that the fraudulent shop kept accepting orders for almost the entire first half of the week: "Action should have been taken sooner."

According to available information, the site only went offline on Thursday, August 27. It had briefly listed a phone number and email address for the owner, but the number is now unreachable. Police spokeswoman Eva Michálková confirmed that criminal proceedings had been opened on suspicion of fraud, noting that blocking a domain requires solid evidence — otherwise police action could unlawfully restrict the rights of a legitimate seller. Victims who never received their goods are advised to file a report at their local police station, and to always check a seller before buying online — especially when the price is significantly below market value.

According to Miloslav Lujka, the chances of getting the money back in such cases are extremely slim: scammers typically use "drops" — often homeless people who have bank accounts opened in their name, set up to automatically forward incoming funds to other accounts, such as Revolut, which police can no longer reach. If the money is then converted into cryptocurrency, tracing it becomes practically impossible.

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Source: seznamzpravy.cz