Acquisition Fraud

Also called: ad fraud

Acquisition fraud is a form of scam that involves offering products that have no value, or charging for services that have not been provided or commissioned. It often involves advertisements in publications that never appear or are barely distributed.

In addition to advertisements, acquisition fraud is also common around paid listings on unimportant websites and registering domain names at unnecessarily high cost. Victims are often deliberately fooled. For example, by mixing up cancellation and confirmation forms and taking advantage of a knowledge deficit on the part of the intended victim.

Acquisition fraud also includes the phenomenon of phantom invoices. These are offers that look tellingly like invoices. Sometimes these offers look like a bill from the Telephone Directory or Chamber of Commerce. If paid (unintentionally), the recipient is stuck with a particular service, sometimes even for a long time.

Fraud is often aimed at collecting as many items as possible that can be used as evidence in collection proceedings before a judge. Such as obtaining signatures and receiving payment. It is then up to the victim to prove, for example, that completely different information was provided over the phone and thus there is fraud.

In the Netherlands, the Steunpunt Acquisitiefraude (SAF) deals with registration and legal advice in cases of advertising or acquisition fraud.