Costcoku.com is a fraudulent website that offers to purchase items from Costco at extremely low prices. It may appear as a discounter, or as a marketplace for warehouse liquidation items, but it is in fact just a narrative to make you think this site is legitimate. Upon ordering from 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 Costcoku.com shop, the way this fraud operates, and teach how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping deceptions in future.
Costcoku.com Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Costcoku.com may initially look like a genuine discounter or the seller of stock liquidation items. But a brief analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s deception. Unfair advertising methods, excessively low prices, absence of user support and customer feedback – this site accomplishes the fraud bingo right away.
Website | Costcoku.com |
Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. United States, San Francisco |
IP Address | 104.21.80.89 |
Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
By purchasing items on websites like Costcoku.com, it is uncertain that you will acquire the goods you’ve ordered. More often, 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 counterfeit items of popular brands, the standard 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 often case when ordering from pages that sell baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.
Wrong item. To make the trade look real, but spend even less money on the delivered item, cheats may send a incidental item they have instead of your order. A worn t-shirt instead of a brand new one, a scratched aluminum plate instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn really inventive in that case.
Absolutely nothing. This is the most typical situation when ordering items from sites like Costcoku.com. Scams take your money, promise the delivery, and then just vanish. As scam sites are not going to exist for a long time, frauds are not wasting time creating even a vague visibility of legitimacy.
Costcoku.com scam – How does it work?
As any scam, Costcoku.com runs a simple and well-proven modus operandi. It usually consists of 3 stages, with some slight deviations from time to time.
Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Frauds post abundant amounts of marketing 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.
As users consider ads on the mentioned platforms benign, they do not doubt anything at this point. Ads become particularly compelling 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 website, fraudsters do their best to make the consumers buy something. Impossibly good 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 consumers stick to the offers and proceed to paying for the order.
Payments are done in a unusual manner. Instead of more classic options for online shopping, like Visa/MasterCard payments or PayPal, swindlers 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 rascals get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough grievances and user feedback about 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 fraudulent activity, the money flow will dry up, leaving cheats with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the hosting speeds up the domain takedown.
Why is Costcoku.com a Scam?
Well, we just talked about the way the hoax site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is deceptive 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 user reviews. Obviously, even legit shopping sites will lack buyer opinions shortly after the start, since there were not many buyers yet. For that reason, this sign is not stand-alone and requires confirmation by other signs or indicators.
However, once you face phishy-looking reviews that have no relation to what the site markets, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any indistinct or absurdity reviews that may describe any item sold on the site 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% discounts are not viable even during sales events such as the aforementioned Black Friday. In some cases, dishonest sites set the prices low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be preposterous, like $30 for a bed or $10 for a branded leather bag. Goods may be sold for cheap, but every discount has its reasonable limits.
3. No customer support.
This is what distinguishes scam sites from the genuine ones, even newly established. When a site is about to scam the clients, there’s no need to bother about answering their questions. Check out the “About us” or “Info” page (if it is present at all) – the site will most likely have no contact info at all.
When they offer a contact email, or even a phone to reach them out, there is a huge possibility that these emails and numbers will be dead silent 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 appear on a completely different site, be sure you are facing a blatant scam.
4. Payments via payment systems that does not support refunds
This scam indicator is not a guarantee, as there are a whole lot of genuine shops using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. Each of the latter has the same feature I’ve already mentioned above: these methods do not suppose any refund options. 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 websites may also ask for payments in crypto, which is even less controllable than aforementioned payment methods. While crypto payments expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different scams.
5. Items’ images are sourced from another page
As fraudsters most likely don’t have any goods on hand, they cannot shoot unique images. Thus their only option is to steal these images from other sites. When frauds market identical items on different sites, you can find such images on similarly-looking scam pages. By searching for the image on Google, you can prove whether the image is unique or not.
6. Design repeats the one of a different page
This is the continuation of the stolen images I’ve just described. As rascals may scam people on the same topic repeatedly, they use the same web design under the new web-address, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, image search on Google advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the copy of the original site. It makes uncovering such scams pretty easy, but criminals who run them never aim at cautious users.
Is your PC infected?
There are situations when Costcoku.com site, along with similar scam sites, are promoted by malware. Adware and browser hijackers are two particular malware types that aim specifically at such purposes. If you see excessive amounts of ads in your browser, have your search queries redirected in an unusual search engine and some random pages open time to time, consider scanning your PC with GridinSoft Anti-Malware. This will help you to get rid of annoying promotions and scam sites.
Remove malware with Gridinsoft Anti-Malware
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Frequently Asked Questions about the Costcoku.com Scam
Costcoku.com operates as a scam website that pretends to be an online store selling various items at low prices. However, it is involved in fraudulent activities and aims to deceive customers by sending counterfeit or inferior products or not delivering anything at all.
There are a couple of warning signs to watch out for. First and foremost, Costcoku.com shop recently created its website, which is a frequent feature of ephemeral deceptive websites that quickly disappear. Secondly, the website lacks contact information such as a telephone number, physical address, or live chat choice, making it hard to resolve matters or inquiries. Thirdly, it shows bogus company details, presenting no real details about the company behind the website. Moreover, this scam entices customers with exaggerated price cuts and promotions, cutting prices by over 70% or even 90%. Additionally, Costcoku.com reproduces material and item pictures from legitimate e-commerce platforms like Alibaba, Amazon, and Aliexpress, showing a shortage of originality and reliability. Moreover, despite stating to present trendy and stylish products, the site lacks any social media presence or links to social media platforms. Finally, real customer feedback is completely absent, with reports of delayed or absent deliveries, substandard client assistance, flawed or wrong products, refund difficulties, and unapproved transactions on credit cards.
No, it is not a legitimate or reliable website. The aforementioned red flags indicate that it lacks credibility and has been reported as a scam site. Customers have experienced receiving counterfeit products or facing difficulties in obtaining refunds or contacting the company.
Take the following steps if you have made a purchase on Costcoku.com:
- Firstly, immediately contact your bank or financial institution if you paid with a credit card or debit card. Request them to cancel the transaction and initiate a refund. Additionally, report Costcoku.com as a fraudulent site and urge them to block future charges from it.
- Promptly change your passwords if you have a Costcoku.com account or use the same password for other online accounts. Consider enabling two-factor authentication to enhance security against hackers attempting to access your accounts and steal personal information.
- Beware of phishing emails related to your Costcoku.com order. Treat any emails offering discounts or refunds as phishing attempts. Avoid clicking on suspicious links or downloading attachments that may contain malware. Delete such emails immediately.
- To prevent malicious ads, Trojans, phishing attempts, and other undesirable content, use a browser-based content blocker like AdGuard. This will complement your antivirus software and provide enhanced protection.
- If you suspect your device is infected with malware, scan it using Gridinsoft Anti-Malware to ensure your security.
No, Costcoku.com does not have genuine customer feedback or testimonials. The absence of legitimate customer reviews further indicates its untrustworthiness and potentially fraudulent nature.