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In April 2017, social media rumors circulated that makeup and beauty chain Ulta Beauty was closing all stores following a buyout by competitor Sephora: Many versions contained what appeared to be a link to an article about the sudden closures, (which sometimes appeared to be published by Curbed.com): However, all links led to a page that was mocked up to look like a phony article from People magazine (hosted at people.com-realsource.co), with a claim that Sephora's supposed buyout of Ulta would be beneficial for cosmetics shoppers: The scam advertisement then claimed that Ulta carries a secret product reserved only for celebrities and other high rollers, but now accessible to all due to the (nonexistent) liquidation of their products thanks to the (nonexistent) buyout: Visitors to the fake People site were greeted by a landing page that resembles the magazine's digital counterpart, complete with invitations to subscribe and a portal to other magazine titles. Clicking the links to other magazines leads to more scam sales pages: Attempts to close the page causes a window to pop up with information about a free trial with dwindling supplies. The page is not published by People, it does not report real news, and it serves only to convert traffic into sales for a skincare product it falsely claims was a long-kept secret at Ulta. As of May 2017, multiple sources report that Ulta is actually opening new stores, not closing them.
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