I recently clicked on a web advertisement for Canada Goose parkas. These are incredibly expensive coats with some selling for well over $1100.
The advertisement I clicked on opened a web page that showed Canada Goose parkas, that regularly sell for $600, on sale for half price. The web page looked professional and appeared to be a legitimate Canada Goose site. However, I started to become a little suspicious that something was up when I saw how slowly the page was loading and even more suspicious when I got an error message when I tried to load the second page of the product listing.
I then went to Google and searched myself for the Canada Goose website. Once I found the link, I clicked on it and the page loaded very quickly. Unfortunately, it did not show any current sales on jackets.
My next step was to try to discover who registered the suspicious web site. I soon got confirmation that my misgivings about the advertised site were justified as the domain was registered in China on October 15th with a contact phone number for some place in India - despite having an American mailing address.
Incidentally, the real Canada Goose website has a URL checker that can be used to verify legitimate Canada Goose online retailers. The site I went to originally was confirmed counterfeit.
The lesson to be learned from this story is if you're tempted to purchase something from a web advertisement, even one purporting to be from a major retailer, use Google to find the link to the store yourself. Don't trust the link offered in the web advertisement unless you're absolutely certain it's legitimate!