HarperAndRoweChicago.com Scam Store: A Fake Harper and Rowe Chicago Website

HarperAndRoweChicago.com is a deceptive website that offers to buy items from Harper and Rowe Chicago at exceptionally cheap prices. It may appear as a discounter, or as a marketplace for warehouse liquidation items, but it is in fact just a ploy to make you think this site is legitimate. Upon 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 HarperAndRoweChicago.com store, the way this scam operates, and explain how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping deceptions in upcoming times.

HarperAndRoweChicago.com Site – Scam Overview

As I said, HarperAndRoweChicago.com may initially seem like a authentic 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 deception. Questionable advertising methods, extremely low prices, lack of customer support and customer testimonials – this site accomplishes the fraud bingo right away.

HarperAndRoweChicago.com Scam

By shopping on websites like HarperAndRoweChicago.com, it is uncertain that you will get the items you’ve ordered. More often, it results in one of 3 cases characteristic 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 mention about that somewhere deep in the item description or “about us” page, but users rarely check them thoroughly. This is a especially often case when ordering from websites that promote baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the purchase look real, but spend even less money on the delivered item, frauds may ship a accidental item they have instead of your order. A worn t-shirt instead of a new one, a scratched aluminum dish instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn rather inventive in that case.

Absolutely nothing. This is the most common situation when ordering from sites like HarperAndRoweChicago.com. Frauds take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply vanish. As scams do not aim to exist for a long time, frauds are not wasting time creating even a slight visibility of legitimacy.

HarperAndRoweChicago.com scam – How does it work?

As any scam, HarperAndRoweChicago.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 massive amounts of promotions on social media, particularly preferring Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Paid ads say 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 genuine, they do not suspect anything at this point. Ads become particularly convincing 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 customers are on the website, deceivers do their best to make the individuals buy something. Mind-boggling deals, additional discounts, free delivery, bright and blinking “Order Now” buttons that are just everywhere – they use every single method possible. And this works out – uninformed users 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 scammers, “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 reports about the site being a scam, they simply disappear. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough individuals are aware about the fraudulent 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 HarperAndRoweChicago.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 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

Fraud sites 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 user feedback when they have just started, since 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 phishy-looking reviews that have nothing to do with what the site sells, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any vague or gibberish 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. 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 Christmas. In some cases, fraudulent 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 discount has its sensible limits.

3. No customer support.

That factor distinguishes deceptive websites from the genuine ones, even newly established. When a site is about to scam the buyers, 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 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 to contact them, there is a huge chance 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 scoundrels often reuse numbers and emails as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they are used on a different site, 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 a whole lot of legit shops using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or payment systems like them. All of them though have the same pitfall I’ve already mentioned above: they do not suppose any refunds. And this is what makes it so attractive to 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 payments expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different scammers.

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As scams are unlikely to have any goods on hand, they are not able to create unique pictures. Thus their option is simply to hijack these images from other sites. When frauds sell the same goods on different sites, you can find same images on similarly-designed 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

Scammers do not steal only pictures. As frauds may parasite on the same topic repeatedly, they use the same web design under the new web-address, and voila – a new scam site is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, reverse 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 pretty easy, but crooks who create them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the HarperAndRoweChicago.com Scam