Steel Box Cargo Website is a SCAM
Please do not spend money with steelboxcargo.com this is a scam website, you will lose your money and they have no intention of ever delivering you a shipping container.
First spotted 05/12/18 this site is currently inactive
This should not be confused with www.thesteelboxcompany.com which is a legitimate trading company.
This is the latest iteration in a range of scam websites we have seen in the UK over the past few months. Previous scam websites have included Steelboxdirect.com Steelboxdirect.co.uk (June/July 2018)
Previous iterations of the same scam website have been in operation before. namely Steelboxdirect.co.uk and steelboxdirect.com
Standard MO for this type of scam website
The website looks very professional.
The trade association memberships and ISO accreditations are all stolen, you can check this with any of these third parties who will confirm that steelboxcargo is not a member or is not accredited.
Their address is Fake. The majority of photos and a lot of the text on this website have been stolen from other container trader’s websites. (stolen text is usually slightly altered)
You call their phone number and get a message saying their team are busy. You leave a message and they then call you back (every time!)
The price will be a little bit too good to be true, typically around 15-25% less than everyone else. Often with free delivery listed.
If you book, they will issue you a formal looking invoice with stolen or fake VAT numbers and company registration numbers. Previous iterations of this scam have used VAT registration numbers for KG Logistics Ltd (not involved in direct shipping container sales) and Consultantsea Ltd (which trades as Budget Shipping Containers and Premier Shipping Containers).
The payment providers you send payment to have altered between a local branch of a main stream bank, and many more suspect payment providers.
Please check our advice pages on how to check VAT registration numbers and company registration numbers.
If you have been scammed my Steel Box Cargo please report this to action fraud and the VAT fraud hotline. Please also let us know. Whilst we are limited in what we can do we are keeping records of all victims so hopefully one day if & when these scammers are caught we can attribute as many cases as we can to the single perpetrators.
The websites are rather cleverly hosted to help avoid them being traced back.
We believe this website is connected to a range of other scam websites that have been in operation recently. We are offering a reward for any information that leads us to the people behind this scam.
If this page has helped you avoid getting scammed, please consider a donation. This is a volunteer led website trying to help people avoid getting scammed. We have no customers or means to generate income. Any spare donations over and above our basic running costs will go into Google AdWords campaigns against active scam websites in operation.
Update 19/12/18
This site is still active
Trade association membership logos have been removed, we believe the copyright owners may have complained to google that their copyright was being infringed.
The site is now using google AdWords and they do not always appear at the top of any AdWords listings, They have been spotted in position 4 and 5 today but AdWords budgets can change over time.