Isla-melbourne.com 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 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 warning signs regarding the Isla-melbourne.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.
Isla-melbourne.com Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Isla-melbourne.com may initially appear like a authentic discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a short analysis shows a disturbing amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s dishonesty. Questionable advertising methods, extremely low prices, lack of user support and user testimonials – this site fulfills the fraud bingo right away.
| Website | Isla-melbourne.com |
| Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. Canada, Ottawa |
| IP Address | 23.227.38.70 |
| Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
| Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
Isla-melbourne.com Scam
By shopping on websites like Isla-melbourne.com, it is unlikely that you will obtain the items you’ve ordered. More frequently, it results in one of 3 instances characteristic for scam sites.
Counterfeit goods. Not the worst option, as you get at least something. But as it usually happens to fraudulent items of popular brands, the grade 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 specifically frequent case when ordering from websites that promote baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.
Wrong item. To make the transaction look real, but spend even less money on the actual item, rascals may ship a random item they have on hand instead of your order. An old t-shirt instead of a branded one, a dirty aluminum dish instead of a set of dishes – scammers may turn quite inventive in that case.
Absolutely nothing. This is the most typical situation when ordering from pages like Isla-melbourne.com. Scams take your money, promise the delivery, and then merely disappear. As scams are not going to exist for a long time, rascals do not bother themselves with creating even a vague sight of legitimacy.
Isla-melbourne.com scam – How does it work?
As any scam, Isla-melbourne.com follows a simple and well-proven modus operandi. It commonly consists of 3 stages, with certain deviations from time to time.
Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Scammers post massive amounts of advertisements 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 deem ads on the mentioned platforms benign, they do not doubt anything at this point. Ads become particularly compelling during major events that boost people’s interest in shopping, like Halloween, Black Friday, Christmas, etc. Sometimes, they disguise themselves as resellers of the liquidated stock of bankrupt retail companies.
Step 2 – Take the Money. Once consumers are on the website, tricksters do their best to make the individuals buy something. Mind-boggling 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 consumers stick to the offers and proceed to paying for the order.
Payments are done in a curious manner. Instead of more classic options for online shopping, like Visa/MasterCard payments or PayPal, swindlers 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 swindlers, “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 complaints and user feedback about the site being a scam, they just disappear. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough people are aware about the dishonest activity, the profits 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 Isla-melbourne.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 fraudulent without risking your money. Fortunately, scams 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 reason (and way) to make any reputation with reviews. Obviously, even benign online shopping sites will lack client testimonials shortly after the start, since there were not many consumers 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, 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 nonsense reviews that may describe any item sold on the site should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on deceptive websites 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% discounts are not feasible even during sales events such as the aforementioned Black Friday. In some cases, deceptive 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 rational limits.
3. No customer support.
This is what distinguishes deceptive sites from the genuine ones, even newly established. When a site is about to rip off the customers, there’s no need to waste time on answering their questions. Check out the “About us” or “Info” page – the page will have no support contacts at all.
Typically for fraudulent websites, the “About us” column is completely empty
When they offer a contact email, or even a phone to contact them, there is a great possibility that these contacts will be dead silent to your request. This, or they will answer you with generic text regardless of your inquiry.
As scammers often reuse numbers and emails as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a different website, be sure you are 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 lot of genuine shops and services using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or payment systems like them. Each of the latter has the same feature I’ve already mentioned above: they do not suppose any refunds. And this is what attracts scammers – once you paid for the order, nothing will help you to get the money back.
Some websites may also offer payments in crypto, which is even less controllable than aforementioned payment methods. While cryptocurrency transactions expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different scammers.
5. Items’ images are sourced from another page
As fraudsters are unlikely to have any real items on hand, they cannot make unique images. Thus their option is simply to steal these images from other websites. When scams market identical goods on different pages, you can find same pics 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 again and again, they reuse the same site design under the new URL, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, image search advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the copy of the page you’ve started on. It allows you to uncover such scams particularly easy, but crooks who run them never aim at cautious users.
Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design
Is your PC infected?
There are situations when Isla-melbourne.com website, together with similar scam pages, are promoted by malware. Adware and browser hijackers are malware types known for such behavior. If you notice excessive ads in your browser, have your search queries redirected in a different 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.
Remove malware with Gridinsoft Anti-Malware
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Frequently Asked Questions about the Isla-melbourne.com Scam
Isla-melbourne.com 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 multiple warning signs to watch out for. Firstly, Isla-melbourne.com shop recently created its online platform, which is a typical feature of brief scam sites that swiftly vanish. Secondly, the webpage lacks contact information such as a phone number, physical address, or real-time chat choice, making it hard to address problems or inquiries. Thirdly, it shows bogus business information, presenting no genuine information about the organization behind the website. Moreover, this deceptive tactic entices customers with impractical price cuts and promotions, reducing prices by over 70% or even 90%. Additionally, Isla-melbourne.com plagiarizes text and item pictures from genuine e-commerce platforms like Alibaba, Amazon, and Aliexpress, showing a lack of originality and credibility. Furthermore, despite asserting to provide trendy and chic goods, the site lacks any social media presence or links to social media platforms. Finally, genuine client testimonials is completely absent, with reports of delayed or missing deliveries, substandard client assistance, defective or wrong products, reimbursement difficulties, and illegitimate transactions 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 Isla-melbourne.com:
- 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 Isla-melbourne.com as a fraudulent site and urge them to block future charges from it.
- Promptly change your passwords if you have a Isla-melbourne.com 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 Isla-melbourne.com 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, Isla-melbourne.com does not have genuine customer feedback or testimonials. The absence of legitimate customer reviews further indicates its untrustworthiness and potentially fraudulent nature.
