Existencemind.com Fact Check: Legitimate or Shady Scam?

Existencemind.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 actually just a ploy 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 highlight the red flags regarding the Existencemind.com site, the way this deception operates, and show how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping deceptions in upcoming times.

Existencemind.com Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Existencemind.com may initially appear like a genuine discounter or the seller of stock liquidation items. But a short analysis shows a troubling amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s fraudulence. Unfair advertising methods, unreasonably low prices, absence of user support and user testimonials – this site fulfills the fraud bingo right away.

Existencemind.com Scam

By shopping on pages like Existencemind.com, it is uncertain that you will get the items you’ve ordered. More typically, it results in one of 3 instances typical 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 notify about that somewhere deep in the item description or “about us” page, but users rarely check them thoroughly. This is a specifically frequent case when ordering from pages that sell baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

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

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

Existencemind.com scam – How does it work?

As any fraud, Existencemind.com runs a simple and well-proven scheme of operations. It usually consists of 3 stages, with certain deviations from time to time.

Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Scammers post huge amounts of advertisements 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 legitimate, 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 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 consumers buy something. Mind-boggling 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 individuals stick to the offers and proceed to paying for the order.

Payments are done in a peculiar manner. Instead of more classic options for online shopping, like Visa/MasterCard payments or PayPal, deceivers 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 deceivers, “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 customers are aware about the deceptive 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 Existencemind.com 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, 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

Hoax websites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no purpose (and way) to make any online reputation with user reviews. Obviously, even legit shopping sites will lack client testimonials when they have just started, as there were not many clients 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 unrealistic reviews that have nothing to do with what the site offers for sale, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any indistinct or gibberish 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% discounts are not viable even during sales events such as the aforementioned Black Friday. In some cases, scam 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 for cheap, but every discount has its reasonable limits.

3. No customer support.

That factor distinguishes deceptive sites from the benign 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 (if it is present at all) – the page will most likely have no contact info whatsoever.

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

When they offer an email, or even a phone to reach them out, there is a huge chance that these numbers and emails will be unresponsive to your request. This, or they will answer you with generic text regardless of your question.

As frauds often reuse numbers and emails as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they are used on a totally different website, be sure that this is 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 complementary, as there are a whole lot of legit services using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or payment systems like them. 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 attracts scammers – once you’ve sent the money, nothing will help you to get the money back.

Some websites may also ask for payments in cryptocurrency, which feature even less control. 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 scammers most likely don’t have any goods on hand, they are not able to create unique pictures. Thus their only option is to steal these images from other sites. When rascals 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 scam people on the same topic repeatedly, they reuse the same site design under the new address, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, reverse image search advice from the previous paragraph may lead you to the identical copy of the original site. It makes uncovering such scams particularly easy, but crooks who create them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Is your PC infected?

There are cases when Existencemind.com site, together with similar scam pages, 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 web browser, have your search queries going in an unusual search engine and some random pages open time to time, scan your device with GridinSoft Anti-Malware. This will help you to get rid of annoying promotions and scam sites.

Remove malware with Gridinsoft Anti-Malware

We have also been using this software on our systems ever since, and it has always been successful in detecting viruses. It has blocked the most common adware as shown from our tests with the software, and we assure you that it can remove malware as well as other malware hiding on your computer.

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Frequently Asked Questions about the Existencemind.com Scam