Hricalus.top is a scam website that offers to buy clothes at unusually discounted prices. This site may look like a discounter or a reseller of goods from stock liquidation, but it is in fact just a ploy to make you think this site is legitimate. After ordering from this site, you will most likely get nothing at all, or, at best, poor-quality or counterfeit items.
In this article, I will highlight the warning signs regarding the Hricalus.top shop, the way this scam operates, and explain how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping frauds in future.
Hricalus.top Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Hricalus.top may initially appear like a genuine discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a brief analysis shows a disturbing amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s dishonesty. Questionable advertising methods, excessively low prices, lack of user support and customer feedback – this site fulfills the fraud bingo right away.
| Website | Hricalus.top |
| Hosting | AS396982 Google LLC United States, Kansas City |
| IP Address | 35.244.245.121 |
| Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
| Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
Hricalus.top Scam
By purchasing items on sites like Hricalus.top, it is unlikely that you will acquire the goods you’ve ordered. More typically, it results in one of 3 situations characteristic 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 inform about that somewhere deep in the item description or “about us” page, but users rarely check them thoroughly. This is a especially frequent case when ordering from websites that sell baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.
Wrong item. To make the deal look more legitimate, but spend even less money on the delivered item, cheats may ship a accidental item they have instead of what you’ve ordered. An old t-shirt instead of a brand new one, a dented aluminum plate instead of a set of dishes – scammers may turn quite inventive in that case.
Absolutely nothing. This is the most frequent situation when ordering from websites like Hricalus.top. Frauds take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply disappear. As scams are not going to exist for a long time, scammers do not bother themselves with creating even a vague semblance of legitimacy.
Hricalus.top scam – How does it work?
As any fraud, Hricalus.top follows a simple and well-proven modus operandi. It usually consists of 3 stages, with certain deviations from time to time.
Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Frauds post massive amounts of marketing 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 deem ads on the mentioned platforms benign, they do not suspect 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 mask 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 consumers 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 individuals stick to the offers and proceed to paying for the order.
Payments are done in a strange manner. Instead of more classic options for online shopping, like Visa/MasterCard payments or PayPal, tricksters 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 tricksters, “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 about 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 dishonest activity, the profits will dry up, leaving crooks with no motivation to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting speeds up the domain takedown.
Why is Hricalus.top a Scam?
Well, we just talked about the way the scam site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is fraudulent 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
Scam sites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no purpose (and way) to make any reputation with feedback. Obviously, even legit shopping sites will lack buyer opinions shortly after the start, as there were only a few clients 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 phishy-looking reviews that have no relation to what the site sells, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any indistinct or balderdash 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% reductions are not feasible even during sales events such as the aforementioned Thanksgiving day. In some cases, deceptive sites have the initial price low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be outrageous, 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.
That factor distinguishes deceptive sites from the legit ones, even newly established. When a site is about to scam the customers, there’s no need to bother about answering their questions. Check out the “About us” or “Info” page – the page will most likely have no contact info 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 chance that these emails and numbers will be unresponsive to your request. This, or they will answer you with generic text regardless of your question.
As scammers often reuse numbers and emails for specifying them as “support”, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a different site, be sure that this is 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 complementary, as there are a whole lot of trustworthy 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’ve sent the money, there’s no way to get the money back.
Some sites may also ask for payments in cryptocurrency, which is even less controllable than aforementioned payment methods. While crypto payments expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different frauds.
5. Items’ images are sourced from another page
As scams most likely don’t have any real items, they cannot make unique pictures. Thus their option is simply to steal these images from other websites. When fraudsters offer the same items on different sites, you can find same images on similarly-designed fraudulent sites. 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
This is the continuation of the stolen images I’ve just described. As rascals may use the same topic repeatedly, they put the same web design under the new URL, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, image search on Google advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the copy of the original site. It makes uncovering such frauds 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 situations when Hricalus.top website, along with similar scam pages, are promoted by malware. Adware and browser hijackers are malware types that aim specifically at such purposes. If you notice excessive amounts of ads appearing in your web browser, see your search queries redirected in an unusual search engine and some random pages open time to time, consider scanning your device with GridinSoft Anti-Malware. This will help you to get rid of annoying promotions and scam sites.
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Frequently Asked Questions about the Hricalus.top Scam
Hricalus.top operates as a scam website that pretends to be an online store selling various items at low prices. However, it is involved in fraudulent activities and aims to deceive customers by sending counterfeit or inferior products or not delivering anything at all.
There are a couple of indicators that point at fraudulent nature of Hricalus.top shop. To begin with, Hricalus.top shop recently created its online platform, which is a typical characteristic of short-lived deceptive websites that rapidly vanish. Second, the website lacks contact information such as a telephone number, physical address, or live chat alternative, making it challenging to resolve matters or queries. Thirdly, it provides bogus business information, giving no authentic data about the company behind the webpage. Moreover, this scam entices buyers with impractical discounts and promotions, cutting prices by over 70% or even 90%. Furthermore, Hricalus.top plagiarizes material and item pictures from genuine online stores like Alibaba, Amazon, and Aliexpress, demonstrating a absence of innovation and trustworthiness. Furthermore, despite asserting to offer trendy and chic goods, the webpage lacks any social media presence or links to online networking platforms. To conclude, authentic client testimonials is completely absent, with reports of delayed or absent deliveries, poor client assistance, defective or incorrect products, repayment difficulties, and illegitimate charges on credit cards.
No, it is not a legitimate or reliable website. The aforementioned red flags indicate that it lacks credibility and has been reported as a scam site. Customers have experienced receiving counterfeit products or facing difficulties in obtaining refunds or contacting the company.
Take the following steps if you have made a purchase on Hricalus.top:
- Firstly, immediately contact your bank or financial institution if you paid with a credit card or debit card. Request them to cancel the transaction and initiate a refund. Additionally, report Hricalus.top as a fraudulent site and urge them to block future charges from it.
- Promptly change your passwords if you have a Hricalus.top account or use the same password for other online accounts. Consider enabling two-factor authentication to enhance security against hackers attempting to access your accounts and steal personal information.
- Beware of phishing emails related to your Hricalus.top order. Treat any emails offering discounts or refunds as phishing attempts. Avoid clicking on suspicious links or downloading attachments that may contain malware. Delete such emails immediately.
- To prevent malicious ads, Trojans, phishing attempts, and other undesirable content, use a browser-based content blocker like AdGuard. This will complement your antivirus software and provide enhanced protection.
- If you suspect your device is infected with malware, scan it using Gridinsoft Anti-Malware to ensure your security.
No, Hricalus.top does not have genuine customer feedback or testimonials. The absence of legitimate customer reviews further indicates its untrustworthiness and potentially fraudulent nature.
Hricalus.top Scam
Store Name: Hricalus.top
Store Description: Hricalus.top is an online store that has been identified as a fraudulent website involved in scam activities. It claims to offer a variety of clothes, often at extremely low prices, to attract unsuspecting customers. However, numerous red flags and customer reports indicate that Hricalus.top either sends counterfeit or inferior clothes, or fails to deliver anything at all. The website lacks genuine contact information, company details, and social media presence. It has been found to plagiarize content and product images from legitimate online stores, further compromising its credibility. Due to these factors, it is strongly advised to avoid Hricalus.top and similar websites to protect oneself from financial loss and potential scams.
Price range: $5 - $100
Address: no
Telephone: no
