We Looked Into Icricr.shop: Scam or Legit? The Verdict

Icricr.shop is a fraudulent 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 in fact just a narrative to make you think this site is legitimate. 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 show the red flags regarding the Icricr.shop store, the way this deception operates, and explain how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in future.

Icricr.shop Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Icricr.shop may initially look like a authentic discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a short 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 reviews – this site accomplishes the scam bingo right away.

Icricr.shop Scam

By purchasing on pages like Icricr.shop, it is improbable that you will obtain the goods you’ve ordered. More often, 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 counterfeit items of popular brands, the characteristic 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 frequent case when ordering from sites that offer baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

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

Absolutely nothing. This is the most common outcome when ordering items from pages like Icricr.shop. Frauds take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply disappear. As scam sites are not going to exist for a long time, scammers do not bother themselves with creating even a remote visibility of legitimacy.

Icricr.shop scam – How does it work?

As any scam, Icricr.shop follows a simple and well-proven scheme of operations. It usually consists of 3 stages, with some slight deviations from time to time.

Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Scammers post abundant 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 benevolent, they do not doubt anything at this point. Ads become especially 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, deceivers do their best to make the consumers 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 peculiar manner. Instead of more classic options for online shopping, like Visa/MasterCard payments or PayPal, fraudsters 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 scoundrels get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough complaints and user feedback about the site being fraudulent, they simply disappear. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough individuals know about the fraudulent activity, the profits will dry up, leaving swindlers with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.

Why is Icricr.shop 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

Hoax websites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no purpose (and way) to make any online reputation with feedback. Obviously, even legit shopping sites will lack consumer comments shortly after the start, since there were just a few customers 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 markets, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any obscure or absurdity reviews that may describe any item sold on the site should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on deceptive sites 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 Thanksgiving day. In some cases, deceptive 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 discount has its reasonable limits.

3. No customer support.

This is what distinguishes dishonest websites from the legit 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 – the site will likely have no contact info at all.

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

When they offer a contact email, or even a phone to reach them out, there is a great chance that these emails and numbers will be dead silent to your request. This, or you will receive some 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 mentioned on a totally 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 complementary, as there are a whole lot of trustworthy services and shops using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. All of them though have the same pitfall 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, there’s no way to get the money back.

Some websites may also offer payments in crypto, 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 are unlikely to have any goods on hand, they are not able to shoot unique pictures. Thus their only option is simply to steal these images from other websites. When fraudsters market identical goods on different websites, you can find same images on similarly-designed scam 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 steal only photos. As frauds may parasite on the same topic repeatedly, they use the same web design under the new address, and voila – a new scam 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 scams pretty easy, but crooks who run them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the Icricr.shop Scam