Is Bestaffordableshop.com Legit or a Ripoff? Our In-Depth Investigation

Bestaffordableshop.com is a scam website that offers to purchase items at unusually discounted prices. It may look like a discounter or a reseller of goods from stock liquidation, but it is actually just a ploy to make you think about this site as a legitimate one. After placing an order on this site, you will likely get nothing at all, or, at best, inferior or counterfeit items.

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

Bestaffordableshop.com Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Bestaffordableshop.com may initially appear like a genuine discounter or the seller of stock liquidation items. But a quick analysis shows a troubling amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s deception. Questionable advertising methods, unreasonably low prices, absence of customer support and customer testimonials – this site completes the fraud bingo right away.

Bestaffordableshop.com Scam

By purchasing on websites like Bestaffordableshop.com, it is questionable that you will obtain the goods 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 quality 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 particularly common case when ordering from websites that offer baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the transaction look more legitimate, but spend even less money on the actual item, frauds may ship a accidental item they have instead of what you’ve ordered. A worn t-shirt instead of a brand new one, a dirty aluminum plate instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn rather inventive in that case.

Absolutely nothing. This is the most usual outcome when ordering from sites like Bestaffordableshop.com. Fraudsters take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply vanish. As scam websites are not going to exist for a long time, scammers are not wasting time creating even a vague sight of legitimacy.

Bestaffordableshop.com scam – How does it work?

As any scam, Bestaffordableshop.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. Frauds post huge amounts of advertisements on online platforms, particularly preferring Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Paid ads say exactly 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 consider ads on the mentioned platforms benevolent, 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 mask themselves as resellers of the liquidated stock of bankrupt retail companies.

Step 2 – Take the Money. Once customers are on the site, swindlers do their best to make the individuals buy something. Mind-boggling deals, additional discount promo codes, free shipping, bright and blinking “Order Now” buttons that are just everywhere – they use every single method possible. And this works out – uninformed customers 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 fraudsters, “no refunds” is a part of their policy which you agree on upon registration.

Step 3 – Vanish. Once scoundrels get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough complaints and user feedback about the site being a scam, they simply disappear. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough customers are aware about the dishonest activity, the profits will dry up, leaving fraudsters with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting speeds up the domain takedown.

Why is Bestaffordableshop.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, frauds 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 online reputation with feedback. Obviously, even benign shopping sites will lack customer reviews when they have just started, since there were not many customers 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 phishy-looking reviews that have no relation to what the site offers for sale, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any blurred or balderdash 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 trustworthy even during sales events such as the aforementioned Christmas. In some cases, deceptive websites have the initial price 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 at a low price, but every discount has its sensible limits.

3. No customer support.

That factor distinguishes fraudulent websites from the genuine ones, even newly established. When a site is about to defraud the customers, there’s no need to bother about answering their questions. Check out the “About us” or “Info” page – the page will likely have no contact info whatsoever.

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

When they offer an email, or even a phone to contact them, there is a great chance that these contacts will be unresponsive to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your inquiry.

As scammers often reuse phone numbers and email addresses as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they are mentioned on a different website, be sure you’re facing a blatant scam.

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

4. Payments via payment systems that does not support refunds

This scam indicator is complementary, as there are a lot of benign shops using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or payment systems like them. All of them though have the same pitfall I’ve already mentioned above: they do not suppose any refunds. And this is what attracts scammers – once you paid for the order, there’s no way to get the money back.

Some websites may also offer payments in cryptocurrency, 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 fraudsters are unlikely to have any real items, they are not able to shoot unique pictures. Thus their only option is to steal these images elsewhere. When rascals market identical goods on different sites, you can find such images on similarly-designed 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

Rascals do not steal only pics. As scammers may use the same topic again and again, they put the same site design under the new web-address, and voila – a new scam site is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, reverse image search advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the copy of the original site. It makes uncovering such frauds particularly easy, but scoundrels who create them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the Bestaffordableshop.com Scam