Efanoa.com is a deceptive website that offers to purchase items 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 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 concerning indicators regarding the Efanoa.com shop, the way this fraud operates, and explain how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping frauds in future.
Efanoa.com Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Efanoa.com may initially look like a authentic discounter or the seller of stock liquidation items. But a swift analysis shows a disturbing amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s deception. Questionable advertising methods, excessively low prices, absence of customer support and customer feedback – this site accomplishes the scam bingo right away.
| Website | Efanoa.com |
| Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. United States, San Francisco |
| IP Address | 172.66.40.89 |
| Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
| Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
Efanoa.com Scam
By shopping on sites like Efanoa.com, it is improbable that you will obtain the items you’ve ordered. More typically, it results in one of 3 instances 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 quality 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 common case when ordering from pages that sell baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.
Wrong item. To make the transaction look legit, but spend even less money on the delivered item, rascals may send a accidental item they have on hand instead of what you’ve ordered. An old t-shirt instead of a branded one, a scratched aluminum platter instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn quite inventive in that case.
Absolutely nothing. This is the most usual scenario when ordering items from sites like Efanoa.com. Frauds take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply disappear. As scam websites do not aim to exist for a long time, fraudsters do not bother themselves with creating even a slight visibility of legitimacy.
Efanoa.com scam – How does it work?
As any scam, Efanoa.com follows a simple and well-proven scheme of operations. It commonly consists of 3 stages, with certain deviations from time to time.
Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Frauds post abundant amounts of promotions on social media, particularly preferring Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Paid ads say 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 regard ads on the mentioned platforms benevolent, they do not suspect 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 disguise themselves as resellers of the liquidated stock of bankrupt retail companies.
Step 2 – Take the Money. Once users are on the website, scammers do their best to make the individuals 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 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 crooks get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough grievances and user reports regarding the site being fraudulent, they simply vanish. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough people know about the dishonest activity, the profits will dry up, leaving scammers with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the hosting speeds up the domain takedown.
Why is Efanoa.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 fraudulent 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 websites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no reason (and way) to make any online reputation with feedback. Obviously, even benign online shopping sites will lack consumer comments when they have just started, since there were not many patrons yet. For that reason, this sign is not stand-alone and must be confirmed with other signs or indicators.
Definitely not generic comments generated by AI
However, when you face phishy-looking reviews that have nothing to do with what the site markets, 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 dishonest 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% reductions are not viable 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 absurd, like $30 for a bed or $10 for a branded leather bag. Goods may be sold at a low price, but every sell-off has its rational limits.
3. No customer support.
That factor distinguishes fraudulent sites from the benign ones, even newly established. When a site is about to rip off 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 support contacts at all.
Typically for fraudulent sites, the “About us” column is completely empty
When they offer an email, or even a phone number to reach them out, there is a huge possibility that these numbers and emails will be dead silent to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your question.
As frauds often reuse phone numbers and email addresses for specifying them as “support”, you can search them on Google. When they are used on a different website, be sure you are 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 not a guarantee, as there are plenty of benign shops using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. All of them though have 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 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 cryptocurrency transactions expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different scams.
5. Items’ images are sourced from another page
As scammers most likely don’t have any goods on hand, they cannot create unique pictures. Thus their only option is to steal these images elsewhere. When crooks offer identical items on different sites, you can find same pics on similarly-looking 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 stop on stealing photos. As rascals may parasite on the same topic repeatedly, they put the same site design under the new URL, 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 scoundrels who create them never aim at cautious users.
Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design
Frequently Asked Questions about the Efanoa.com Scam
- Contact your bank or card provider and ask about chargeback options.
- Save screenshots, receipts, tracking numbers, and emails as evidence.
- Change reused passwords and enable two-factor authentication on important accounts.
- Watch for follow-up phishing emails pretending to offer refunds or delivery updates.
