Is Ifantastics.com A Scam? The Hard Facts You Need To Know

Ifantastics.com is a deceptive website that offers to purchase items at extremely low prices. It may look like a discounter or a reseller of goods from stock liquidation, but it is actually just a story to make you think about this site as a legitimate one. Upon placing an order on this site, you will likely get nothing at all, or, at best, poor-quality or counterfeit items.

In this article, I will show the concerning indicators regarding the Ifantastics.com store, the way this fraud operates, and explain how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in upcoming times.

Ifantastics.com Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Ifantastics.com may initially appear like a authentic discounter or the seller of stock liquidation items. But a quick analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s fraudulence. Unfair advertising methods, extremely low prices, absence of user support and user feedback – this site fulfills the fraud bingo right away.

Ifantastics.com Scam

By shopping on pages like Ifantastics.com, it is doubtful that you will obtain the goods you’ve ordered. More commonly, it results in one of 3 situations common 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 quality 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 notably common case when ordering from sites that sell baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the purchase look real, but spend even less money on the delivered item, rascals may send a incidental item they have instead of what you’ve ordered. An old t-shirt instead of a brand new one, a scratched aluminum platter instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn quite inventive in that case.

Nothing at all. This is the most common scenario when ordering from websites like Ifantastics.com. Scams take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply disappear. As scams are not going to exist for a long time, fraudsters are not wasting effort creating even a remote visibility of legitimacy.

Ifantastics.com scam – How does it work?

As any scam, Ifantastics.com 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 huge amounts of marketing 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 regard ads on the mentioned platforms benign, they do not suspect 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 individuals are on the site, deceivers do their best to make the individuals buy something. Impossibly good 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 customers 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 tricksters get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough complaints and user feedback regarding the site being a scam, they just vanish. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough customers know about the deceptive activity, the money flow will dry up, leaving crooks with no motivation to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.

Why is Ifantastics.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, fraudsters 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 sites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no reason (and way) to make any online reputation with reviews. Obviously, even benign online shopping sites will lack client testimonials when they have just started, as there were just a few buyers 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, when you face unrealistic reviews that have no relation to what the site sells, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any unclear or balderdash reviews that may describe any item sold on the site should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on dishonest 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% markdowns are not feasible even during sales events such as the aforementioned Thanksgiving day. In some cases, scam websites set the prices 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 sell-off has its logical limits.

3. No customer support.

That factor distinguishes deceptive sites from the genuine 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 site will likely have no contact info whatsoever.

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 inquiry.

As scammers tend to reuse phone numbers and email addresses as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they are used on a totally different website, 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 benign shops and services 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 attracts scammers – once you’ve sent the money, there’s no way to get the money back.

Some websites may also offer payments in crypto, which is even less controllable than aforementioned payment methods. 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 frauds most likely don’t have any goods on hand, they are not able to create unique pics. Thus their only option is to hijack these images from other sites. When crooks sell identical items on different pages, you can find such pics on similarly-looking fraudulent pages. 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 copy only pictures. As rascals may scam people on the same topic repeatedly, they use the same site design under the new web-address, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, image search advice from the previous paragraph may lead you to the identical copy of the site you’ve started on. It allows you to uncover such scams pretty easy, but crooks who stand behind them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Is your PC infected?

There are cases when Ifantastics.com site, together with similar scam pages, are promoted by malware. Adware and browser hijackers are two particular malware types known for such behavior. If you see excessive amounts of ads appearing in your browser, have your search queries redirected in an unusual search engine and some random pages open time to time, scan your system with GridinSoft Anti-Malware. This will help you to get rid of annoying promotions and scam sites.

Remove malware with Gridinsoft Anti-Malware

We have also been using this software on our systems ever since, and it has always been successful in detecting viruses. It has blocked the most common adware as shown from our tests with the software, and we assure you that it can remove malware as well as other malware hiding on your computer.

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Frequently Asked Questions about the Ifantastics.com Scam