Online shopping fraud cost consumers $5.7 billion in 2025, according to the FTC. Fake online stores are a primary vehicle — professional-looking websites that accept your payment, then either ship counterfeit goods or nothing at all. Before you enter your credit card number on any website, these checks take under five minutes and could save you thousands.
About to buy from an unfamiliar site? Paste the URL into IsThisAScam.to for a free safety check before you checkout.
Check 1: Look at the URL Carefully
Start with the basics. The URL should begin with https:// (not http://). The padlock icon in your browser's address bar confirms the connection is encrypted. But be warned: scammers get SSL certificates too. HTTPS is necessary but not sufficient — it only means the connection is encrypted, not that the site is trustworthy.
Examine the domain name itself. Scam stores frequently use:
- Misspelled brand names:
n1ke-outlet.com,adiddas-clearance.shop - Hyphens and extra words:
official-samsung-deals.com - Unusual TLDs:
.shop,.store,.top,.xyzare disproportionately used by scam sites (though legitimate sites use them too)
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Check 2: Verify the Domain Age
Scam websites are disposable. They go up, collect payments for a few weeks, and vanish. Checking when a domain was registered reveals this pattern. A website claiming to be an established retailer but registered three weeks ago is almost certainly fraudulent.
Use a WHOIS lookup tool (whois.domaintools.com or who.is) and check the "Creation Date." For more on this technique, see our guide on why new domains are suspicious.
As a benchmark: 78% of scam shopping sites analyzed by our team in 2025 were less than 90 days old.
Check 3: Read the Contact and About Pages
Legitimate businesses want you to reach them. Look for:
- A physical address (search it on Google Maps — is it a real business location or a random house?)
- A phone number (call it — does someone answer?)
- A real company name with registration details
- An "About Us" page with specific company history, not generic text
Red flags: no contact page, only a contact form with no email or phone, a generic address that turns out to be a UPS Store or virtual office, and About pages with stock photos and vague text about "providing the best products at unbeatable prices."
Check 4: Examine Prices and Product Photos
If a luxury handbag that retails for $2,000 is listed at $89, that is not a deal — it is bait. Scam stores lure buyers with absurdly low prices on high-demand items. Compare prices across Amazon, the brand's official site, and major retailers. Discounts beyond 50-60% on branded goods should trigger skepticism.
Product photos on scam sites are typically stolen from legitimate retailers. Run a reverse image search (right-click the image, "Search image with Google") to see if the same photos appear on other websites.
Check 5: Search for Reviews Outside the Site
Never trust reviews on the store's own website — they are easily faked. Instead, search for "[website name] reviews" or "[website name] scam" on Google. Check Trustpilot, the Better Business Bureau, Reddit, and consumer forums.
"I ordered a jacket from fashiondeals-outlet.com three weeks ago. No tracking number, no response to emails. Credit card charged $67. Filed a dispute." — Reddit user, r/Scams
No reviews at all is also a red flag for a site claiming to have been in business for years.
Check 6: Inspect the Payment Methods
Legitimate stores offer standard payment processors — credit cards via Stripe or PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay. Be wary if a site only accepts wire transfers, cryptocurrency, gift cards, or direct bank transfers. These payment methods offer no buyer protection and are preferred by scammers for exactly that reason.
Credit cards provide the strongest buyer protection. If a charge turns out to be fraudulent, your card issuer can reverse it through a chargeback.
Check 7: Look at the Return and Privacy Policies
Scam sites either have no return policy, a policy copied verbatim from another website (search a sentence from it on Google), or a policy with impossible conditions ("returns accepted within 3 days, buyer pays international shipping to China").
Similarly, check the privacy policy. If it references a completely different company name, it was copied from another site — a telltale sign of a hastily assembled scam store.
Check 8: Use IsThisAScam's Automated Analysis
Manual checks cover the basics, but IsThisAScam's 6-layer detection engine goes deeper. It checks domain registration data, SSL certificate details, server location, known scam URL databases, content pattern analysis, and cross-references against thousands of reported scam stores — all in seconds. This catches the sophisticated fakes that pass visual inspection.
Real Example: Anatomy of a Fake Store
In February 2026, our team analyzed a site called luxwatch-clearance.shop. It had professional photos of Rolex and Omega watches at 80% discounts. The site had HTTPS, a clean design, and even fake Trustpilot badges (which were just images, not linked to real Trustpilot profiles).
What gave it away:
- Domain registered 11 days before our analysis
- WHOIS data hidden behind privacy proxy
- Contact address was a residential apartment in Shenzhen
- Return policy was copied word-for-word from Walmart.com (still referencing "Walmart" in two places)
- Only accepted credit card and cryptocurrency — no PayPal
The site was taken down within a week of our report, but not before an estimated hundreds of people had placed orders.
If You Already Bought From a Scam Site
- Contact your bank immediately and request a chargeback on the transaction
- Change your passwords if you created an account on the scam site
- Monitor your credit card statements for additional unauthorized charges
- Report the site to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and to Google Safe Browsing
For more on website safety, see our guide on checking SSL certificates and using WHOIS data.
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