Avenue-Mode.nl is a scam website that offers to purchase clothing at unusually discounted prices. This site may look like a discounter or a reseller of goods from stock liquidation, but it is in fact just a story to make you think about this site as a legitimate one. Upon ordering goods from this site, you will likely get nothing at all, or, at best, poor-quality or counterfeit items.
In this article, I will demonstrate the concerning indicators regarding the Avenue-Mode.nl shop, the way this scam operates, and teach how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping frauds in future.
Avenue-Mode.nl Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Avenue-Mode.nl may initially look like a authentic discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a quick analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s dishonesty. Unfair advertising methods, excessively low prices, lack of user support and customer reviews – this site fulfills the scam bingo right away.
| Website | Avenue-Mode.nl |
| Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. Canada, Ottawa |
| IP Address | 23.227.38.67 |
| Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
| Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
Avenue-Mode.nl Scam
By purchasing items on sites like Avenue-Mode.nl, it is doubtful that you will get the items you’ve ordered. More commonly, it results in one of 3 instances characteristic for scam sites.
Counterfeit goods. Not the worst option, as you get at least something. But as it usually happens to fraudulent items of popular brands, the standard will be inferior, to say the least. Eventually, the site may inform about that somewhere deep in the item description or “about us” page, but users rarely check them thoroughly. This is a notably often case when ordering from pages that sell baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.
Wrong item. To make the deal look real, but spend even less money on the delivered item, scammers may send a incidental item they have on hand instead of your order. A worn t-shirt instead of a branded one, a scratched aluminum dish instead of a set of dishes – scammers may turn rather inventive in that case.
Nothing at all. This is the most typical situation when ordering from pages like Avenue-Mode.nl. Fraudsters take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply disappear. As scam websites do not aim to exist for a long time, fraudsters are not wasting time creating even a remote visibility of legitimacy.
Avenue-Mode.nl scam – How does it work?
As any scam, Avenue-Mode.nl runs a simple and well-proven scheme of operations. It commonly consists of 3 stages, with certain deviations from time to time.
Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Frauds post massive amounts of marketing on social media, particularly preferring Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Paid ads say the same things as their sites do: 90% discounts, free delivery around the world, hurry up to get the deal.
Ads of fraudulent shops posted on different platforms
As users deem ads on the mentioned platforms legitimate, they do not suspect 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 customers are on the site, deceivers do their best to make the users buy something. Impossibly good 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 quirky 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 tricksters, “no refunds” is a part of their policy which you agree on upon registration.
Step 3 – Vanish. Once crooks get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough complaints and user reports about the site being a scam, they simply vanish. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough customers are aware about the fraudulent activity, the profits will dry up, leaving scammers with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.
Why is Avenue-Mode.nl a Scam?
Well, we just talked about the way the scam site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is untrustworthy without risking your money. Fortunately, scams 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
Hoax websites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no reason (and way) to make any online reputation with reviews. Obviously, even benign online shopping sites will lack user feedback shortly after the start, since there were only a few buyers 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, once you face phishy-looking reviews that have no relation to what the site sells, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any indistinct or drivel reviews that may describe any item sold on the site should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on fraudulent websites you will get an entire saltcellar. Do not hesitate searching 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 Black Friday. In some cases, dishonest websites set the prices low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be ridiculous, like $30 for a bed or $10 for a branded leather bag. Goods may be sold for cheap, but every sell-off has its sensible limits.
3. No customer support.
This is what distinguishes deceptive sites from the benign ones, even newly established. When a site is about to rip off 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 support contacts whatsoever.
Typically for fraudulent websites, the “About us” column is completely empty
When they offer a contact email, or even a phone to contact them, there is a great possibility that these contacts will be unresponsive to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your inquiry.
As scoundrels often reuse numbers and emails as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they are used on a different website, be sure you’re facing 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 a lot of trustworthy shops and services using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. All of them though have the same pitfall I’ve already mentioned above: they do not suppose any refunds. And this is what makes it so attractive to scammers – once you’ve sent the money, nothing will help you to get the money back.
Some sites may also ask for payments in cryptocurrency, which is even less controllable than aforementioned payment methods. While crypto transactions expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different rascals.
5. Items’ images are sourced from another page
As frauds most likely don’t have any goods, they cannot shoot unique images. Thus their option is simply to steal these images elsewhere. When scammers offer identical goods on different websites, you can find same images on similarly-looking scam pages. By searching for the image on Google, you can prove whether the image is unique or not.
Image duplicates on another scam site, as well as on Amazon and Walmart sites
6. Design repeats the one of a different page
This is the continuation of the stolen images I’ve just described. As scammers may use the same topic repeatedly, they use the same site design under the new address, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, image search advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the identical copy of the original site. It allows you to unveil such frauds particularly easy, but criminals who create them never aim at cautious users.
Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design
