We Dug Into Dicksgoox.shop: Legit Store or A Scam?

Dicksgoox.shop is a deceptive website that offers to purchase vases at extremely low 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 this site is legitimate. After ordering from this site, you will likely get nothing at all, or, at best, poor-quality or counterfeit items.

In this article, I will show the red flags regarding the Dicksgoox.shop site, the way this scam operates, and teach how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in upcoming times.

Dicksgoox.shop Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Dicksgoox.shop may initially look like a authentic discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a short analysis shows a troubling amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s fraudulence. Unfair advertising methods, excessively low prices, lack of user support and user testimonials – this site accomplishes the fraud bingo right away.

Dicksgoox.shop Scam

By purchasing on sites like Dicksgoox.shop, it is questionable that you will acquire the items you’ve ordered. More typically, it results in one of 3 scenarios common 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 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 especially common case when ordering from websites that sell baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the transaction look real, but spend even less money on the actual item, scammers may ship a random item they have instead of your order. An old t-shirt instead of a brand new one, a dirty aluminum dish instead of a set of dishes – scammers may turn really inventive in that case.

Nothing at all. This is the most typical outcome when ordering goods from sites like Dicksgoox.shop. Fraudsters take your money, promise the delivery, and then merely vanish. As scams do not aim to exist for a long time, rascals do not bother themselves with creating even a remote visibility of legitimacy.

Dicksgoox.shop scam – How does it work?

As any scam, Dicksgoox.shop runs a simple and well-proven modus operandi. It commonly consists of 3 stages, with some slight deviations from time to time.

Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Scammers post huge 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.

Ads of fraudulent shops posted on different platforms

As users deem ads on the mentioned platforms benign, they do not suspect anything at this point. Ads become particularly 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, scammers do their best to make the individuals buy something. Impossibly good deals, additional discounts, free delivery, bright and blinking “Order Now” buttons that are just everywhere – they use every single method possible. And this works out – uninformed users stick to the offers and proceed to paying for the order.

Payments are done in a strange 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 swindlers, “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 grievances and user feedback regarding the site being fraudulent, they just disappear. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough people know about the fraudulent activity, the profits will dry up, leaving fraudsters with no motivation to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting speeds up the domain takedown.

Why is Dicksgoox.shop 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 sites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no purpose (and way) to make any reputation with reviews. Obviously, even benign online shopping sites will lack user feedback when they have just started, since there were just 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, when 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 website should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on deceptive 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% reductions are not trustworthy even during sales events such as the aforementioned Christmas. In some cases, dishonest sites have the initial price low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be outrageous, 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 websites from the genuine 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 – the page will have no support contacts whatsoever.

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

When they offer an email, or even a phone to reach them out, there is a great chance that these numbers and emails will be dead silent to your request. This, or they will answer you with 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 different site, be sure you are 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 benign shops and services using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or payment systems like them. All of them though have the same pitfall 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 paid for the order, there’s no way to get the money back.

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

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As scammers are unlikely to have any items, they are not able to make unique pictures. Thus their only option is simply to steal these images elsewhere. When crooks offer identical items on different sites, you can find such pics on similarly-looking scam sites. 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 frauds may scam people on 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 copy of the original site. It makes uncovering such frauds particularly easy, but crooks who run them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the Dicksgoox.shop Scam