E-commerce scam

Scams conducted through an e-commerce site are unfortunately common.

With the tools available on the Internet, it has become easy to create an e-commerce store to offer the sale of fictitious products and collect the money sent before disappearing.

How to spot these rogue e-commerce sites?

e-commerce cart
Credit : Enimal

First element that should alert you: An exceptionally low price. A quick glance over the competition will allow you to know the average price offered by e-commerce sites. If a merchant site offers a much lower price than its competitors for the same product, it may be a sign of scam.

Second element : Hosting place of the e-commerce site. Do not trust the name of the site. One can very well create a site whose name contains “USA” or “UK” but that is hosted abroad. Stay as possible on websites hosted in your country of residence, any action against the fraudulent site will be facilitated. To check the hosting place of a site, you can use “whois” sites.

Third element : website creation date. Be aware of brand new e-commerce site, they are more likely to be scams than well-known and popular ones. Again, the “whois” sites will give this kind of information. Attention, we are not saying that all the recent websites are scams!

Fourth element : With a quick search on your favorite internet search engine, you will find comments on the e-commerce site you are interested in, whether it is done by specialized sites or internet forums. Do not trust all the comments as some of them can be fake ones but trust the general opinion.

In summary, to avoid scam on shopping websites: Prefer the most famous sites, flee too “attractive” discount, check comments made by others customers and try to buy as much as possible on websites hosted in your own country.

12 thoughts on “E-commerce scam”

  1. http://www.salesnow.es/
    web site in Spanish, pretends to be a Spanisch online shop for exclusive shoes and cloth.

    1. they were using Trusted Shops logo
    2. The Contact form was not working at all
    3. There were no contact details at all

    I have ordered there shoes for 60 EUR, payment via VISA Card.
    One week later I received a cheap T-shirt from China, nothing else.
    I have reported the case to
    1. Trusted Shops
    2. Bank
    3. Police
    4. consumer protection office.

    Two days passed.
    The web site is no longer working.

  2. http://www.registeredbox.com Stay away from them, after I paid them only thing I received was a confirmation email and that is it. No tracking number, no answer on my emails, other customers are saying the same thing plus their phone is not real. I had to contact them via Instagram and the bs started…Long story short – Stay away. BOXING REFLEX BALL (RED) was the item I bought.

  3. http://www.thelastboat.co.uk
    No information in about section. No info in terms and conditions. Some specific shoes I couldn’t find anywhere else reeled me in. Sucker. No change in order status for a week. No reply to contact.

    Attachment

  4. I made a purchase on hamaestro. They had an ecommerce on Shopify and publicity on Instagram. They seemed legit and they sent me a confirmation email with delivery date. After the date came and went, I wrote to them and clicked on the “track your order” link. Then I discovered that the shop was gone. I then noticed that the email was actually a gmail – hamaestroservice@gmail.com– I’ve tried to reach Shopify, but no reply so far… Sucks…

  5. Purchased in March, no items still in July. Lots of excuses, long periods without replies to email.

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