Could be domain squatting with a bit of added extortion. “Buy this domain or we keep stealing your traffic and making you look like shit”
Comment on Google Moderators Refuse to Take Down Fraudulent Puffing Billy Locations on Google Maps
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
One other suggestion: let the real Puffing Billy know and suggest they make a trademark complaint.
I made a report to scamwatch as @dumblederp@aussie.zone suggested, via their “report a scam website” beta. Here’s the text I used, if anyone else wants to take the basic skeleton of it and tweak it for their own report:
Pretends to be the Puffing Billy Railway (real domain: puffingbilly.com.au) Uses fake AI imagery to advertise and pretend its association with the real railway Advertises “our coupon price” prices above those offered on the official site ($72 for an adult return, official price is $64) Advertises that the “normal price” is above their coupon price ($80) Website owner has also created false entries on mapping & business directory software Google Maps: maps.app.goo.gl/fxVNa5w4SbZ7V1Qi9, maps.app.goo.gl/YB7w8NzmbtMJbdmf7. These entries promote the fake business as if it were the real one, and link back to the scam website.
One weird caveat…I don’t understand what the scam actually is here. I could not find anywhere on their website to actually do anything. No call to action. No link to order tickets. No contact details. Nothing. Just a list of their prices and two fake photos.
Taleya@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
MisterFrog@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
Yeah I’m not sure either, because I called puffing billy today and apparently they have been selling fake tickets. Perhaps the website is just broken at the moment.
Allegedly (according to the person I spoke to) they are re-selling group tickets to multiple groups.
Though not sure why their website is broken at the moment.
In any case they’re still falsely pretending to be puffing billy, so I hope google can remove them.