Inspirationp.com Fact Check: Legitimate or Shady Scam?

Inspirationp.com is a fraudulent website that offers to purchase items at exceptionally cheap 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 ordering from this site, you will likely get nothing at all, or, at best, inferior or counterfeit items.

In this article, I will highlight the warning signs regarding the Inspirationp.com store, the way this fraud operates, and teach how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in upcoming times.

Inspirationp.com Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Inspirationp.com may initially appear like a genuine discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a swift analysis shows a disturbing amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s deception. Questionable advertising methods, extremely low prices, absence of user support and customer feedback – this site fulfills the fraud bingo right away.

Inspirationp.com Scam

By purchasing on pages like Inspirationp.com, it is doubtful that you will acquire the goods you’ve ordered. More often, 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 counterfeit items of popular brands, the standard will be inferior, to say the least. Eventually, the site may indicate about that somewhere deep in the item description or “about us” page, but users rarely check them thoroughly. This is a specifically frequent case when ordering from websites that promote 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, scammers may send a accidental item they have instead of what you’ve ordered. A worn t-shirt instead of a branded one, a dirty aluminum plate instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn quite inventive in that case.

Absolutely nothing. This is the most typical scenario when ordering from pages like Inspirationp.com. Scams take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply disappear. As scam sites do not aim to exist for a long time, scammers do not bother themselves with creating even a slight semblance of legitimacy.

Inspirationp.com scam – How does it work?

As any fraud, Inspirationp.com runs 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. Scammers post massive amounts of promotions on online platforms, 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 regard ads on the mentioned platforms genuine, they do not doubt anything at this point. Ads become especially compelling 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 users are on the website, fraudsters do their best to make the users 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 consumers 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 tricksters, “no refunds” is a part of their policy which you agree on upon registration.

Step 3 – Vanish. Once rascals get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough grievances and user reports regarding the site being a scam, they simply disappear. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough customers know about the dishonest activity, the money flow 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 Inspirationp.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 fraudulent 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 purpose (and way) to make any online reputation with reviews. Obviously, even legit online shopping sites will lack client testimonials shortly after the start, since there were only 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, when you face unrealistic reviews that have no relation to what the site offers for sale, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any obscure or gibberish 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. 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% reductions are not feasible even during sales events such as the aforementioned Christmas. In some cases, scam 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 for cheap, but every sell-off has its sensible limits.

3. No customer support.

This is what distinguishes dishonest websites from the legit ones, even newly established. When a site is about to defraud the clients, 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 site will have no contact info at all.

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

When they offer a contact email, or even a phone number to contact them, there is a huge chance that these contacts will be dead silent to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your inquiry.

As scammers often reuse numbers and emails as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they are used on a different website, be sure you’re 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 complementary, as there are a whole lot of genuine services 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 makes it so attractive to scammers – once you paid for the order, there’s no way to get the money back.

Some sites may also ask for payments in crypto, which feature even less control. While crypto payments expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different fraudsters.

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As rascals most likely don’t have any real items on hand, they are not able to shoot unique pics. Thus their only option is simply to hijack these images from other websites. When fraudsters market the same items on different sites, you can find such pics on similarly-designed scam pages. By searching for the image 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 frauds may use the same topic again and again, they put the same web design under the new URL, 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 page you’ve started on. It makes uncovering such frauds pretty easy, but scoundrels who run them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the Inspirationp.com Scam