Online Shopping Scam Warning Signs
Fake online shops are easy to set up and easy to abandon. A scammer can spin up a fake storefront on a generic e-commerce platform, lift product photos from a real brand, run a paid ad to your social feed, and disappear in two weeks - leaving thousands of customers with nothing or with counterfeits. The good news is that almost all of these share a small set of red flags that you can check before you check out.
This guide focuses on direct-to-consumer fake shops you find via ads or social media, not marketplace-listing scams (see our Facebook Marketplace and eBay guides for those). The patterns overlap, but the consumer recourse is different: in a fake-shop case, your only realistic defense is the payment method you used.
FakeOrLegit is not affiliated with any of the brands mentioned. Always run an unfamiliar storefront through our checker and pay with a credit card you can dispute.
Warning signs
- Domain looks like a brand but is not the brand's official one - lululemon-sale.shop, dyson-clearance.top, ray-ban-outlet.online. Real brands sell on their official domain.
- Site was registered very recently (under 90 days) or has no reviews on Trustpilot, Google, or Reddit. Search the domain + "review" and "scam".
- Prices are aggressively below retail across the entire catalog, not just a sale section. A 70% discount across every product is not a sale, it is a fake.
- Accepts only wire transfer, crypto, Zelle, or unusual payment methods. Legitimate shops use standard processors that support chargebacks.
- No physical address, no working customer service phone, only a generic contact form. The footer might list an address that turns out to be a UPS Store.
- About / contact pages have suspiciously generic copy or grammar errors a real brand would catch.
- Checkout suddenly redirects to a third-party processor URL you do not recognize. Look at the address bar during the entire checkout flow.
- Social proof is unverifiable - testimonials with no names, Instagram embeds with locked-down profiles, "As seen in" press logos that link to nothing.
- Email confirmations come from free providers (gmail.com, outlook.com) or from a different domain than the store.
What to do
- Search the brand's official site and compare prices, branding, and contact information. If the price gap looks impossible, it is.
- Pay with a credit card, never a debit card or wire transfer. Credit cards give you chargeback rights for items that never arrive or are wildly different from description.
- Run the storefront URL through FakeOrLegit before entering payment info.
- Screenshot the checkout, the confirmation page, and your email confirmation. You will need them for the chargeback.
- If you already paid and the order looks suspicious, dispute the charge with your bank within 60 days. Cite the merchant's failure to deliver or material misrepresentation.
- Report the shop to the FTC (reportfraud.ftc.gov) and to the brand being impersonated.
- If the ad came from a social platform, report the ad - the platform's ad-review systems get better with reports.
FAQ
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Disclaimer
FakeOrLegit provides automated risk signals based on publicly observable patterns. We do not guarantee that any site, email, or message is safe or unsafe. Always use your own judgment, and contact the real institution directly to verify any request before sharing personal or payment information.