Is Econobuys.shop Legit or a Scam? What You Need to Know

Econobuys.shop is a fraudulent website that offers to buy decorative flowers 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 about this site as a legitimate one. After ordering from this site, you will most likely get nothing at all, or, at best, inferior or counterfeit items.

In this article, I will show the warning signs regarding the Econobuys.shop store, the way this scam operates, and explain how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in upcoming times.

Econobuys.shop Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Econobuys.shop may initially look like a legit discounter or the seller of stock liquidation items. But a short analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s fraudulence. Questionable advertising methods, excessively low prices, lack of customer support and customer reviews – this site accomplishes the fraud bingo right away.

Econobuys.shop Scam

By purchasing items on websites like Econobuys.shop, it is uncertain that you will obtain the goods you’ve ordered. More typically, it results in one of 3 cases typical for scam sites.

Counterfeit goods. Not the worst option, as you get at least something. But as it usually happens to fake items of popular brands, the grade will be inferior, to say the least. Eventually, the site may notify about that somewhere deep in the item description or “about us” page, but users rarely check them thoroughly. This is a particularly frequent case when ordering from websites that offer baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the trade look more legitimate, but spend even less money on the actual item, cheats may send a random item they have on hand instead of what you’ve ordered. An old t-shirt instead of a new one, a dirty aluminum plate instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn really inventive in that case.

Absolutely nothing. This is the most typical case when ordering items from websites like Econobuys.shop. Frauds take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply vanish. As scam websites do not aim to exist for a long time, rascals do not bother themselves with creating even a slight visibility of legitimacy.

Econobuys.shop scam – How does it work?

As any scam, Econobuys.shop follows a simple and well-proven modus operandi. It usually consists of 3 stages, with certain deviations from time to time.

Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Frauds post abundant amounts of marketing on social media, particularly preferring Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Paid ads say exactly the same things as the websites 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 particularly persuasive 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 consumers are on the website, fraudsters do their best to make the users buy something. Mind-boggling deals, additional discount promo codes, free delivery, 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 curious 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 fraudsters, “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 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 are aware about the deceptive activity, the money flow will dry up, leaving fraudsters with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.

Why is Econobuys.shop a Scam?

Well, we just talked about the way the fraud 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

Fraud websites 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 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, once you face unrealistic reviews that have nothing to do with what the site markets, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any indistinct or nonsense reviews that may describe any item sold on the website should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on fraudulent sites 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 Black Friday. In some cases, deceptive sites set the prices 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 at a low price, but every discount has its sane limits.

3. No customer support.

This is what distinguishes scam sites from the legit 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 likely have no contact info at all.

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

When they offer a contact email, or even a phone to reach them out, there is a huge 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 scoundrels tend to reuse numbers and emails for specifying them as “support”, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a different site, be sure that this is 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 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 attracts scammers – once you paid for the order, nothing will help you to get the money back.

Some sites may also offer payments in cryptocurrency, which is even less controllable than aforementioned payment methods. While cryptocurrency transactions expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different rascals.

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As rascals are unlikely to have any real items on hand, they are not able to shoot unique pictures. Thus their option is simply to steal these images from other sites. When scammers sell the same items on different websites, 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.

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 again and again, they reuse the same web design under the new address, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, reverse image search advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the identical copy of the site you’ve started on. It allows you to uncover such scams pretty 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 Econobuys.shop Scam