Fabdresser.com Fact Check: Legitimate or Shady Scam?

Fabdresser.com is a fraudulent website that offers to buy items at unusually discounted 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 goods from this site, you will likely get nothing at all, or, at best, inferior or counterfeit items.

In this article, I will demonstrate the warning signs regarding the Fabdresser.com shop, the way this fraud operates, and show how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping deceptions in upcoming times.

Fabdresser.com Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Fabdresser.com may initially look like a legit discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a brief analysis shows a troubling amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s dishonesty. Questionable advertising methods, excessively low prices, lack of customer support and user feedback – this site fulfills the fraud bingo right away.

Fabdresser.com Scam

By purchasing items on pages like Fabdresser.com, it is improbable that you will obtain the items you’ve ordered. More commonly, 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 counterfeit items of popular brands, the quality 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 notably common case when ordering from websites that offer baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the transaction look legit, but spend even less money on the actual item, scammers may send a accidental 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 – frauds may turn really inventive in that case.

Absolutely nothing. This is the most typical scenario when ordering from websites like Fabdresser.com. Frauds take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply disappear. As scams do not aim to exist for a long time, fraudsters do not bother themselves with creating even a slight semblance of legitimacy.

Fabdresser.com scam – How does it work?

As any scam, Fabdresser.com follows a simple and well-proven modus operandi. It usually consists of 3 stages, with some slight deviations from time to time.

Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Frauds post huge amounts of advertisements on online platforms, 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 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, scammers 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 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 deceivers, “no refunds” is a part of their policy which you agree on upon registration.

Step 3 – Vanish. Once swindlers get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough complaints 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 money flow will dry up, leaving cheats with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.

Why is Fabdresser.com a Scam?

Well, we just talked about the way the fraud site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is untrustworthy without risking your money. Fortunately, frauds 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 reputation with reviews. Obviously, even benign shopping sites will lack user feedback shortly after the start, since there were only a few customers 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, once you face phishy-looking reviews that have nothing to do with what the site sells, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any blurred or gibberish reviews that may describe any item sold on the website should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on deceptive sites you will get an entire saltcellar. Always search 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 have the initial price low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be preposterous, like $30 for a bed or $10 for a branded leather bag. Goods may be sold for cheap, but every sell-off has its sane limits.

3. No customer support.

This is what distinguishes dishonest websites from the benign ones, even newly established. When a site is about to rip off the clients, 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 at all.

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

When they offer a contact email, or even a phone to contact them, 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 question.

As frauds often reuse phone numbers and email addresses as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a different website, be sure you’re 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 plenty of trustworthy services and shops using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. Each of the latter has 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’ve sent the money, nothing will help you to get the money back.

Some websites may also ask for payments in crypto, which feature even less control. While crypto transactions expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different fraudsters.

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As rascals are unlikely to have any real items on hand, they cannot make unique pics. Thus their only option is to hijack these images elsewhere. When crooks offer identical items on different websites, you can find such images on similarly-designed fraudulent pages. By reverse image searching 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

Rascals do not copy only pics. As frauds may parasite on the same topic repeatedly, they reuse the same site design under the new web-address, and voila – a new scam site is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, image search on Google advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the identical copy of the original site. It allows you to unveil such frauds particularly easy, but scammers who create them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the Fabdresser.com Scam