Dickssportinggoodssale.shop is a fraudulent website that offers to purchase items at exceptionally cheap prices. It 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 this site is legitimate. 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 demonstrate the red flags regarding the Dickssportinggoodssale.shop site, the way this scam operates, and show how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping frauds in future.
Dickssportinggoodssale.shop Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Dickssportinggoodssale.shop may initially look like a authentic discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a quick analysis shows a disturbing amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s dishonesty. Unfair advertising methods, extremely low prices, lack of customer support and customer feedback – this site fulfills the scam bingo right away.
Website | Dickssportinggoodssale.shop |
Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. United States, San Francisco |
IP Address | 104.17.232.29 |
Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
By purchasing items on pages like Dickssportinggoodssale.shop, it is unlikely that you will obtain the items you’ve ordered. More typically, it results in one of 3 cases standard for scam sites.
Counterfeit goods. Not the worst option, as you get at least something. But as it usually happens to imitation items of popular brands, the characteristic will be inferior, to say the least. Eventually, the site may indicate about that somewhere deep in the item description or “about us” page, but users rarely check them thoroughly. This is a especially frequent case when ordering from websites that market baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.
Wrong item. To make the purchase look legit, but spend even less money on the delivered item, frauds may send a random item they have instead of what you’ve ordered. A worn t-shirt instead of a new one, a dirty aluminum platter instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn quite inventive in that case.
Absolutely nothing. This is the most common case when ordering items from websites like Dickssportinggoodssale.shop. Fraudsters take your money, promise the delivery, and then merely vanish. As scam sites are not going to exist for a long time, frauds are not wasting time creating even a vague semblance of legitimacy.
Dickssportinggoodssale.shop scam – How does it work?
As any fraud, Dickssportinggoodssale.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 massive amounts of promotions on online platforms, 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.
As users deem ads on the mentioned platforms legitimate, they do not suspect anything at this point. Ads become especially 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 users are on the website, fraudsters do their best to make the individuals buy something. Mind-boggling 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 individuals 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, scammers 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 tricksters get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough grievances and user feedback regarding 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 deceptive activity, the money flow will dry up, leaving swindlers with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.
Why is Dickssportinggoodssale.shop 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, 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
Scam sites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no reason (and way) to make any reputation with feedback. Obviously, even benign online shopping sites will lack customer reviews shortly after the start, as 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 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% markdowns are not trustworthy even during sales events such as the aforementioned Christmas. In some cases, deceptive sites 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 at a low price, but every discount has its sensible limits.
3. No customer support.
That factor distinguishes fraudulent websites from the benign ones, even newly established. When a site is about to defraud the customers, there’s no need to waste time on answering their questions. Check out the “About us” or “Info” page – the page will most likely have no support contacts whatsoever.
When they offer an email, or even a phone number to reach them out, there is a huge chance that these contacts will be dead silent to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your inquiry.
As frauds tend to reuse phone numbers and email addresses for specifying them as “support”, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a completely different site, be sure that this is a blatant scam.
4. Payments via payment systems that does not support refunds
This scam indicator is complementary, as there are plenty of benign services using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or payment systems like them. Each of the latter has the same feature I’ve already mentioned above: they do not suppose any refunds. 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 websites may also offer payments in cryptocurrency, which is even less controllable than aforementioned payment methods. 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 items on hand, they cannot create unique pictures. Thus their option is to steal these images elsewhere. When crooks offer identical goods on different pages, you can find such images on similarly-looking scam sites. By searching for the image on Google, you can prove the uniqueness of an image.
6. Design repeats the one of a different page
This is the continuation of the stolen images I’ve just described. As frauds may parasite on the same topic repeatedly, they use the same site design under the new web-address, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, image search advice from the previous paragraph may lead you to the identical copy of the site you’ve started on. It makes uncovering such scams pretty easy, but scammers who stand behind them never aim at cautious users.
Is your PC infected?
There are cases when Dickssportinggoodssale.shop website, along with similar scam sites, are promoted by malware. Adware and browser hijackers are two particular malware types known for such behavior. If you notice excessive amounts of ads appearing in your browser, have your search inquiries redirected into a different search engine and some random pages open time to time, consider scanning your system with GridinSoft Anti-Malware. This will help you to get rid of annoying promotions and scam sites.
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Frequently Asked Questions about the Dickssportinggoodssale.shop Scam
Dickssportinggoodssale.shop 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 several signs that point at fraudulent nature of Dickssportinggoodssale.shop shop. Firstly, Dickssportinggoodssale.shop shop recently created its webpage, which is a typical feature of short-lived deceptive websites that swiftly evaporate. Second, the website lacks contact information such as a phone number, street address, or real-time chat option, making it hard to tackle matters or inquiries. Third, it shows fake business information, presenting no genuine data about the organization behind the online platform. Furthermore, this scam entices buyers with unrealistic price cuts and sales offers, reducing prices by over 70% or even 90%. Additionally, Dickssportinggoodssale.shop copies text and item pictures from legitimate online stores like Alibaba, Amazon, and Aliexpress, showing a shortage of unique ideas and credibility. Furthermore, despite asserting to provide trendy and stylish items, the webpage lacks any social media presence or links to social media platforms. Lastly, authentic client testimonials is completely absent, with reports of delayed or absent deliveries, inferior client assistance, defective or wrong products, reimbursement difficulties, and unapproved charges 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 Dickssportinggoodssale.shop:
- 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 Dickssportinggoodssale.shop as a fraudulent site and urge them to block future charges from it.
- Promptly change your passwords if you have a Dickssportinggoodssale.shop 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 Dickssportinggoodssale.shop 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, Dickssportinggoodssale.shop does not have genuine customer feedback or testimonials. The absence of legitimate customer reviews further indicates its untrustworthiness and potentially fraudulent nature.