We Dug Into Finiteas.com: Legit Store or A Scam?

Finiteas.com is a scam website that offers to purchase items at exceptionally cheap 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 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 Finiteas.com site, the way this fraud operates, and teach how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping deceptions in upcoming times.

Finiteas.com Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Finiteas.com may initially look like a legit discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a quick analysis shows a troubling amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s dishonesty. Unfair advertising methods, excessively low prices, absence of customer support and customer reviews – this site completes the fraud bingo right away.

Finiteas.com Scam

By shopping on pages like Finiteas.com, it is questionable that you will get the items you’ve ordered. More often, it results in one of 3 scenarios 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 particularly common case when ordering from websites that promote baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the trade look legit, but spend even less money on the delivered item, rascals may ship a incidental item they have on hand instead of your order. An old t-shirt instead of a brand new one, a dented aluminum platter instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn quite inventive in that case.

Absolutely nothing. This is the most typical case when ordering from pages like Finiteas.com. Fraudsters take your money, promise the delivery, and then merely disappear. As scam sites do not aim to exist for a long time, fraudsters do not bother themselves with creating even a remote semblance of legitimacy.

Finiteas.com scam – How does it work?

As any scam, Finiteas.com runs 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. Scammers post massive amounts of advertisements on social media, 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 consider ads on the mentioned platforms genuine, they do not doubt anything at this point. Ads become especially convincing 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 customers are on the website, scammers do their best to make the individuals 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 consumers 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, 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 swindlers, “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 grievances and user feedback about the site being fraudulent, they just disappear. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough individuals know about the dishonest activity, the profits will dry up, leaving crooks with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.

Why is Finiteas.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 deceptive without risking your money. Fortunately, rascals 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 user reviews. Obviously, even benign shopping sites will lack client testimonials shortly after the start, since there were not many patrons 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 no relation to what the site offers for sale, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any indistinct or balderdash reviews that may describe any item sold on the site should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on fraudulent 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 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 ludicrous, 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 sensible limits.

3. No customer support.

This is what distinguishes scam 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 site 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 emails and numbers will be dead silent to your request. This, or they will answer you with generic text regardless of your question.

As scammers tend to reuse phone numbers and email addresses for specifying them as “support”, you can search them on Google. When they are used on a completely 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 a lot of trustworthy shops and services 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 attracts scammers – once you paid for the order, nothing will help you to get the money back.

Some sites may also ask for 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 fraudsters.

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As frauds are unlikely to have any items on hand, they are not able to create unique pics. Thus their option is simply to hijack these images elsewhere. When frauds offer identical goods on different websites, you can find same images on similarly-looking fraudulent sites. By reverse image searching 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

This is the continuation of the stolen images I’ve just described. As scammers may scam people on the same topic again and again, they reuse the same web design under the new URL, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, image search advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the copy of the site you’ve started on. It makes uncovering such frauds pretty easy, but scammers who stand behind them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the Finiteas.com Scam