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Lots of firewood: Prices have risen sharply in recent months
Photo: Sven Simon / IMAGO
Firewood for 60 or 70 euros per cubic meter, with free nationwide delivery within 24 hours?
Anyone who comes across such bargains online these days should be skeptical.
For weeks now, police authorities have been warning of fake shops trying to trick consumers with alleged special prices for firewood and pellets in the wake of rising energy prices.
After the police headquarters in Bad Segeberg and the police headquarters in Lower Bavaria, the district police authority in Wesel also saw it as its responsibility this Monday to specifically draw attention to these attempts at fraud.
The scam revolves around fictitious online retailers with real websites that are not suspicious by name.
Criminals offer products such as firewood and pellets on websites such as brennholz-fabrik.com and top-brennholz.com.
The prices and delivery times are often remarkably good, and as a rule, an imprint and contact options also suggest seriousness.
At the same time, however, interested parties are tempted to pay for the goods in advance or at least to make a down payment.
Once money has flowed, the supposed deal is already over: the firewood ordered via the fake shops is never delivered, and the criminals make off with their earnings.
Attempts to reach the shop provider after waiting a few days come to nothing, customers no longer get a response to their calls or emails.
Or, something like this also happens, they end up with a real firewood company, but they cannot help them.
In these cases, the scammers have brazenly copied an established company's contact details and incorporated them into their lure websites and fake order flow.
No connection under this number
The Wesel district police authority reported on Monday about "a typical case" in which a 34-year-old wanted to buy "two cubic meters of beech firewood" from a fake shop.
"When she entered her data in the order form, she was referred directly to a French account for the transfer," it says.
“After the transfer, the woman from Dinslaken dialed a phone number that was given on the website to make an appointment for the delivery.
But the number was not taken.”
In order to protect other firewood seekers from such annoyances, the Wesel authority advises finding out more about the shop before ordering.
"Reputable shops are characterized by the fact that they provide secure payment options with buyer protection or purchase on account," she emphasizes.
Anyone who becomes a victim of online fraud should report it.
The police headquarters in Lower Bavaria also advised last week to search online for the experiences of others before making a purchase in a hitherto unknown shop - you often come across warnings.
And in Lower Bavaria too, caution is advised if you can only pay in advance.
If you want to know what extent the rip-off has already reached this summer, the Federal Association of Firewood Trade and Firewood Production (BuVBB) is the right contact.
As early as mid-July, the industry association wrote on its website that cases of fraud were reported to it "again and again".
Since the release of that message, however, the situation has become "even worse," downright "catastrophic," Gerd Müller, head of the BuVBB office, told SPIEGEL on Tuesday.
He was recently told by a retailer that he was getting 15 to 20 angry calls a day - because a fake website simply claimed his business was a local delivery point that belonged to it.
"People who have paid for the fake shop and are waiting for their goods are now complaining to the real dealer," says Müller, who knows several similar cases.
"For the companies affected, the whole thing is incredibly annoying and damaging to their reputation."
According to Müller's association, the scams go far beyond classic websites and order forms.
For example, there are said to be criminals who vie for attention with Facebook ads.
Apparently, it is also quite common for orders to be placed via WhatsApp.
The scammers are faster than the scammers
The BuVBB is currently trying to get the problem under control in two ways: It has put a kind of positive list of certified member companies online.
He also publishes the names of well-known fake shops, including offers such as top-brennholz.com, plessner-holz.com, qualitätsbrennholz.com and mkw-energieholz.com.
Some of the websites mentioned are still online.
Other offers from the list, on the other hand, are offline, but they could have been relaunched with a different name.
Gerd Müller says he can't keep up with listing all the fake shops that have been reported to him.
New ones are added every day.
"People don't call me until their money's gone," he complains.
As an industry expert, he says that most fake offers for firewood can already be unmasked by the price.
»I would be careful with prices below 100 euros per bulk cubic meter«, says Müller, referring to the current market situation, »and if someone then claims that they can deliver small quantities free of charge and everywhere in Germany, that can only be a scam.«
