In case you were wondering if adidas2017.com is legit or fake here is our verdict. It is fake, and here is why we think so.
By accessing the website on December 27, 2017, we get the error page we see below. This is not what an error page of a multi-billion dollar company looks like. Not to mention, error pages are very rare for Adidas. Once the website did load, you can see that there is no contact telephone number on the website, which is extremely strange. Also, if you look closely, the design is almost exactly the same as ilusports.com which we mention below. That website is now shut down.
From the domain name whois check, we see that it was registered only recently (November 27th, 2017) and it is hosted on GoDaddy. From experience, I can tell you Adidas neither registers or hosts domain names with GoDaddy.
WHOIS record for adidas2017.com
Next: Finding a RayBan infringement
I was browsing Instagram and I saw an ad for some nice Adidas running shoes. After browsing the website for only a short while, there were red flags all over the place. First of all, the domain name wasn’t right. It wasn’t Adidas or Adidas related, it was – ilusports.com. Then I was looking around the website, only to find other clues proving this couldn’t be a legitimate offer.
Unfortunately, this isn’t anything new. Just a few months ago I saw someone post a photo on Facebook with a “Ray-Ban official website”, selling a €225.00 sunglasses for €24.99. I was thinking about writing a post about it, but I focused on other priorities.
The photo appeared on my Facebook feed, after one of my friends was tagged in it.
Fake Ray-Ban offer posted as a photo on Facebook
So when yesterday this fake “Adidas” website showed up, I was looking in my archive of the Ray-Ban infringement, and went back to Instagram if I could possibly get another glimpse of the fake Adidas ad to take a screenshot. What I found was even worse! I now saw an ad for Ray-Ban sunglasses and as you can see from the screenshot below, the ad seems perfectly legitimate and 100% Ray-Ban authentic. Below you can see the screenshot I took on Instagram, exactly as it was displayed to me. Ray-Ban logo, with the words “Ray-Ban Sponsored”.
Fake Ray-Ban Instagram ad
However, when you open the alleged Ray-Ban website, you end up on an almost exact copy of the before-mentioned “Adidas website”! Talk about a horror story. Below you can see a few screenshots of the identical fake “Ray-Ban” and “Adidas” websites. What really happens after you click the “Ray-Ban Sponsored” ad, you are taken to a domain name “regoing.com” which apparently has absolutely nothing to do with Ray-Ban or Luxottica.
Below you can see what happened to the rbztu.com website after it was shut down (the one I found a few months ago), and I expect something similar to happen to these two. But what happens before that? People are giving credit card information and purchasing suspicious, to say the last, products expecting Adidas and Ray-Ban quality at a ridiculously low price. Google AdWords has in place keyword and trademark detection, so not everyone can post ads on trademarks but looks like Instagram has a long way to go on this one. I suppose that’s one protection in comparing AdWords vs SEO, AdWords won’t allow you to post ads on any keyword you can think of.
Fake Ray-Ban website shut down
Always check the domain name before making a purchase, SSL certificate on the website is a must if you are making a purchase or entering your order details, and it never hurts to use some common sense. 80% and 90% discounts easily fall into the “too good to be true”. Also, you can check whois, as we did here. Earlier you were able to see the design resemblance between the two (regoing.com and ilusports.com), but in the whois, one is listed in Chile, and the other in China (with incorrect whois details).
It’s hard to end on a positive note with this one, and it saddens me to see scams like this still occur, especially when we could be doing so much more to prevent this from happening! Domain registrars, hosting companies, content delivery networks, Internet service providers, browsers, display ad platforms, they are all a part of this scary story, and almost everybody is just looking away! How much longer do we tolerate this?
P.S.
Adidas is registered trademark of Adidas, and Ray-Ban is a registered trademark of Luxottica, with their respective, original websites!
