How to identify a fake webshop

 

Nothing beats the convenience of online shopping. With just a few clicks on your laptop or taps on your phone, you purchase the desired products and wait for them to show up at your doorstep. Unfortunately, there’s another group besides consumers who exploit the advantages of online shopping: fraudsters.

 

With the rapidly increasing number of fakeshops, it’s more important than ever to learn the difference between genuine and fake webshops so you can protect yourself against fraud.

 

 

What is a fakeshop

A fake webshop, or a fakeshop, is a website operated by malevolent actors who want to convince consumers to buy products or services from them. These websites pose as legitimate shops and usually have one of the following three goals in mind, or any combination of them.

 

1. Selling you counterfeit products
2. Gaining access to your sensitive personal data
3. Stealing money from your bank account.

 

A recent study shows that global e-Commerce fraud is currently valued at over $4 trillion, with losses from online payment fraud amounting to $44 billion. Unfortunately, the situation is projected to worsen and reach $100 billion by 2029.

 

However, here’s some good news: consumers are not entirely defenceless against fraudulent sellers. There are quite a few signs you can check for to determine if you’re dealing with a fakeshop.

 

 

Common signs of fake webshops

A suspicious URL. This is especially true for fakeshops that try to mimic a well-known brand’s or seller’s website, but others may also go for URLs that are just slightly off. A typo in the domain name (e.g., samsong.com instead of samsung.com) or a weird name (e.g., theverybestdeals.shop) are usually signs that something is not right. Fraudsters infringing on a brand’s IP rights often choose to typosquat and register a domain name that eerily resembles the brand’s original domain.

 

Newly registered webshops. A fakeshop is only effective as long as consumers believe it’s genuine. But once news is out that a domain leads to a fakeshop, scammers have to move their site to a new domain. This is exactly why our domain monitoring tool, domainiac, continuously checks for newly registered websites, which is especially important during big shopping seasons like Christmas.

 

Therefore, if you land on a shop that was just registered, it’s best to be wary from the start. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be an IT wizard to learn the age of a domain: simply add the URL to a tool like What’s My DNS’s Domain name age checker to determine when it was registered.

 

 

Illustration of a scam alert popping up on a tablet

 

 

A poor website design. Fraudsters rarely bother with elaborate design and compelling layout, which means that fakeshops often use amateurish design, pixelated images, and inconsistent branding throughout their site. However, with the rising popularity of e-Commerce providers like Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce, some fraudsters may use these services to create more compelling fakeshops. This means that even if you come across a perfectly designed webshop, it may not be genuine.

 

Spelling mistakes and typos. Since product listings and website text are often copied and pasted from several other sites, you can expect bad spelling and inconsistent terminology. Nevertheless, the lack of these features doesn’t necessarily mean that the webshop is legit (see the previous point).

 

Unrealistic prices. If a deal seems to be too good to be true, it usually is. Instead of getting the new iPhone for 10 euros, you’ll likely end up with your data stolen.

 

Lack of verifiable contact information. If the shop doesn’t provide a physical address and a working phone number that you can check against a business register, or if the customer-service chat is unresponsive, you have every reason to be suspicious.

 

Unusual payment methods. If a shop asks you to send a wire transfer or another payment method you’d never heard of, it’s quite likely a sign of a scam.

        

Check out what a payment scam happened to our reader who tried to sell clothing on Vinted!

 

Fake reviews and ratings. If a site has a large number of generic 5-star reviews, often not even referring to the actual products or services on sale, it may be a sign of fake reviews and thus a suspicious webshop.

 

 

Dark patterns: how to bully consumers into shopping

Dark patterns are deceptive design elements that urge consumers into taking a specific action (usually purchase or subscribe to something). A study conducted by the European Commission suggests that over 40% of webshops are guilty of using dark patterns in 2023.

 

Unfortunately, this means that besides fraudsters, even legitimate webshops may use these tactics to get you to make a purchase. When you see dark patterns, it’s best to take a step back and think carefully if you really need the product in question. Let’s take a look at the most commonly used dark patterns.

 

• Countdowns. A large flashing banner counting down the seconds to the time the unmissable deal ends usually creates a sense of urgency and entices consumers to act without thinking.

• Overly persuasive language. Is this product the ultimate perfection that solves all your problems in life? Is this seller the cream of the crop because they send 10 free gifts worth three times as much as your purchase? It’s best to be wary.

• Hidden costs. If a webshop offers unmissable deals but ends up piling extra costs (e.g., undisclosed shipping and handling fees) into your shopping basket, they’re definitely resorting to dark patterns.

• Additional products. If you’ve chosen a product and get an interface that urges you to add another at a discount or even take out a subscription for a better deal, you’ve encountered another prevalent dark pattern.

 

While the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) prohibits online platforms from using dark patterns, the ban is unfortunately not consistently enforced. This means that consumers have to remain vigilant when shopping online to recognize and actively protect themselves from being manipulated by dark patterns.

 

 

Additional tactics preferred by fraudsters

Fraudsters use several other tactics to mask themselves as legitimate sellers.

 

Images displayed in a fakeshop tend to be stolen from genuine sites or recreated by fraudsters to resemble the originals. This is why our image monitoring tool, infrimage, is essential for discovering fakeshops and fraudulent product listings using stolen or copied pictures.

 

Learn more about infrimage!

 

Since most consumers expect tracking of their shipments, fraudsters will provide their customers with fake tracking information that leads to nowhere.

 

Frequently changing shop names and/or domains is another necessary act for fraudsters, as they need to move on quickly once a scam is discovered and shared in the news.

 

And let’s not forget about phishing links. As fraudsters try to get to your sensitive data, they’ll send you phishing links disguised as a regular contact info form, often via social media or messaging platforms. To curb this harmful activity, we monitor social media sites and marketplaces to detect connections between seemingly independent fake sellers/products.

 

Related topics

How to identify a fake product - a guide by globaleyez 

 

Fraud alert: Scammers trick customers on Vinted

 

7 types of harm counterfeits cause you

 

Trending scams and fraud

 

 

The impact of fakeshops on online brand protection

Fake webshops don’t just harm consumers but brands as well. They basically impersonate a brand, stealing its copyrighted imagery, logos, slogans, product listings, and many other types of content, eroding the trust of the brand’s customers.

 

They’ll lose out on sales, as would-be customers buy fake products from fraudsters instead of genuine items. The reputation also suffers, because if a brand name is used in a scam, it can absolutely fall back on it, even if the brand had nothing to do with the fraud. This is especially true if the scam involves phishing that gets customers’ financial and personal data into the wrong hands.

 

Luckily, there’s a lot you can do to prevent the worst. Regular online monitoring ensures that new scams are detected as soon as possible, minimizing the damage they do to customers and brands.

 

Domain monitoring, for instance, is especially effective in discovering fakeshops infringing on IP rights, while image monitoring detects stolen and copied imagery, and social media monitoring uncovers fake social media ads.

 

Our efforts are crowned by enforcing the brand owner’s rights, which include taking down the infringing content and putting a stop to fraud.

 

 

Tips for consumers: How to shop safely online

In line with all of the above, there are a few other things you can do before pressing ‘purchase’ on a seemingly unmissable deal.

 

• Always check the URL of a webshop for any typos or suspicious names. In addition, look for https in the URL to ensure the site has a valid security certificate.

• Research the webshop before buying anything. Take a look at their reviews on independent websites and google them to see if they were previously associated with any suspicious activities.

• Don’t believe your eyes. If a deal seems to be too good to be true, it most likely is.

• Don’t share your passwords, pins, your ID card, or any other personal information. No legitimate webshop would ask for these.

• Be wary of unfamiliar payment options, including those that offer little to no buyer protection (e.g., a bank transfer).

• Use a credit card for payments in unfamiliar webshops, as these offer more buyer protection than debit cards.

• If in doubt, contact the brand for a list of authorized sellers. Luckily, brands are becoming more aware of the damage of e-Commerce fraud, including fake products, and many of them offer advice to their customers on how to avoid these.

  

  

Conclusion

e-Commerce fraud is becoming more prevalent and sophisticated. Don’t fall victim to a scam: make sure to take your time and check for any red flags before handing over your personal and financial information.

 

Contact us if you have any questions, or if you’d like to alert us to any kind of fraud you experienced!