Analyzing Audiitious.com: Should You Trust It? Our Take

Audiitious.com is a deceptive website that offers to purchase items at exceptionally cheap prices. It may appear as a discounter, or as a marketplace for warehouse liquidation items, but it is in fact just a ploy to make you think this site is legitimate. After ordering from this site, you will likely get nothing at all, or, at best, inferior or counterfeit items.

In this article, I will show the red flags regarding the Audiitious.com shop, the way this deception operates, and show how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in upcoming times.

Audiitious.com Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Audiitious.com may initially seem like a authentic discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a swift analysis shows a troubling amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s dishonesty. Questionable advertising methods, unreasonably low prices, lack of user support and user testimonials – this site accomplishes the scam bingo right away.

Audiitious.com Scam

By purchasing items on pages like Audiitious.com, it is unlikely that you will acquire the items you’ve ordered. More often, it results in one of 3 instances common for scam sites.

Counterfeit goods. Not the worst option, as you get at least something. But as it usually happens to fake items of popular brands, the quality will be inferior, to say the least. Eventually, the site may mention about that somewhere deep in the item description or “about us” page, but users rarely check them thoroughly. This is a specifically common case when ordering from sites that sell baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the purchase look real, but spend even less money on the actual item, rascals may ship a accidental item they have on hand instead of what you’ve ordered. An old t-shirt instead of a new one, a scratched aluminum platter instead of a set of dishes – scammers may turn rather inventive in that case.

Absolutely nothing. This is the most frequent situation when ordering goods from websites like Audiitious.com. Scams take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply disappear. As scams are not going to exist for a long time, fraudsters do not bother themselves with creating even a slight visibility of legitimacy.

Audiitious.com scam – How does it work?

As any fraud, Audiitious.com runs a simple and well-proven scheme of operations. It usually consists of 3 stages, with some slight deviations from time to time.

Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Scammers post huge amounts of advertisements on online platforms, particularly preferring Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Paid ads say the same things as the websites do: 90% discounts, free delivery around the world, hurry up to get the deal.

Ads of fraudulent shops posted on different platforms

As users consider ads on the mentioned platforms genuine, they do not doubt anything at this point. Ads become especially convincing during major events that boost people’s interest in shopping, like Halloween, Black Friday, Christmas, etc. Sometimes, they disguise themselves as resellers of the liquidated stock of bankrupt retail companies.

Step 2 – Take the Money. Once individuals are on the site, fraudsters do their best to make the users buy something. Mind-boggling deals, additional discounts, free shipping, bright and blinking “Order Now” buttons that are just everywhere – they use every single method possible. And this works out – uninformed consumers stick to the offers and proceed to paying for the order.

Payments are done in a peculiar manner. Instead of more classic options for online shopping, like Visa/MasterCard payments or PayPal, fraudsters offer using direct bank transfers, Venmo or CashApp. Thing is, the latter do not provide any refunds, regardless of the circumstances. Even when you can prove that the transaction went to scammers, “no refunds” is a part of their policy which you agree on upon registration.

Step 3 – Vanish. Once tricksters get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough complaints and user reports regarding the site being fraudulent, they just vanish. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough people know about the deceptive activity, the profits will dry up, leaving crooks with no motivation to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.

Why is Audiitious.com a Scam?

Well, we just talked about the way the scam site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is fraudulent without risking your money. Fortunately, fraudsters do not bother themselves with creating well-rounded disguises, so the same red flags repeat from one site to another.

1. Fake or absent reviews

Fraud sites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no purpose (and way) to make any reputation with reviews. Obviously, even legit online shopping sites will lack user feedback shortly after the start, since there were only a few consumers yet. For that reason, this sign is not stand-alone and requires confirmation by other signs or indicators.

Definitely not generic comments generated by AI

However, when you face unrealistic reviews that have nothing to do with what the site sells, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any blurred or nonsense reviews that may describe any item sold on the website should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on dishonest websites you will get an entire saltcellar. Always search for reviews on Google – this may save your money.

2. Unbelievably high discounts/low prices

No merchants will sell goods at loss for themselves. 70%, 80%, 90% markdowns are not feasible even during sales events such as the aforementioned Christmas. In some cases, scam sites set the prices low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be ludicrous, like $30 for a bed or $10 for a branded leather bag. Goods may be sold at a low price, but every sell-off has its sane limits.

3. No customer support.

This is what distinguishes dishonest websites from the legit ones, even newly established. When a site is about to scam the clients, there’s no need to waste time on answering their questions. Check out the “About us” or “Info” page (if it is present at all) – the page will most likely have no contact info at all.

Typically for fraudulent sites, the “About us” column is completely empty

When they offer an email, or even a phone number to reach them out, there is a great possibility that these emails and numbers will be unresponsive to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your question.

As scoundrels often reuse numbers and emails for specifying them as “support”, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a completely different website, be sure that this is a blatant scam.

A chain of scam websites that use the same “support email”

4. Payments via payment systems that does not support refunds

This scam indicator is not a guarantee, as there are plenty of legit services and shops using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. Each of the latter has the same pitfall I’ve already mentioned above: these methods do not suppose any refund options. And this is what attracts scammers – once you’ve sent the money, nothing will help you to get the money back.

Some websites may also ask for payments in crypto, which feature even less control. While crypto payments expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different fraudsters.

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As scams are unlikely to have any real items, they are not able to create unique images. Thus their option is to hijack these images elsewhere. When scammers sell the same items on different pages, you can find such images on similarly-designed scam sites. By searching for the image on Google, you can prove the uniqueness of an image.

Image duplicates on another scam site, as well as on Amazon and Walmart sites

6. Design repeats the one of a different page

Scammers do not copy only pictures. As scammers may parasite on the same topic again and again, they reuse the same web design under the new web-address, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, reverse image search advice from the previous paragraph may lead you to the copy of the page you’ve started on. It allows you to uncover such scams particularly easy, but crooks who stand behind them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the Audiitious.com Scam