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

Karengibbs.shop is a scam website that offers to buy items at exceptionally cheap prices. This site 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. After ordering from this site, you will likely get nothing at all, or, at best, inferior or counterfeit items.

In this article, I will show the concerning indicators regarding the Karengibbs.shop shop, the way this scam operates, and show how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping deceptions in future.

Karengibbs.shop Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Karengibbs.shop may initially seem like a authentic 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 dishonesty. Unfair advertising methods, extremely low prices, lack of customer support and user feedback – this site fulfills the scam bingo right away.

Karengibbs.shop Scam

By purchasing items on pages like Karengibbs.shop, it is uncertain that you will get the items you’ve ordered. More commonly, it results in one of 3 cases typical for scam sites.

Counterfeit goods. Not the worst option, as you get at least something. But as it usually happens to fake items of popular brands, the characteristic 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 often case when ordering from pages that offer baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the transaction look more legitimate, but spend even less money on the actual item, rascals may send a random item they have on hand instead of what you’ve ordered. An old t-shirt instead of a branded one, a scratched aluminum plate instead of a set of dishes – scammers may turn quite inventive in that case.

Nothing at all. This is the most usual scenario when ordering goods from websites like Karengibbs.shop. Scams take your money, promise the delivery, and then just vanish. As scams are not going to exist for a long time, scammers do not bother themselves with creating even a faint visibility of legitimacy.

Karengibbs.shop scam – How does it work?

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

Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Scammers post huge 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 consider ads on the mentioned platforms genuine, 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 disguise themselves as resellers of the liquidated stock of bankrupt retail companies.

Step 2 – Take the Money. Once individuals are on the site, swindlers do their best to make the users 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 strange 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 crooks get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough complaints and user reports about the site being a scam, they simply vanish. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough people are aware about the deceptive activity, the profits will dry up, leaving fraudsters with no motivation to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.

Why is Karengibbs.shop 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, scammers 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 reason (and way) to make any reputation with user reviews. Obviously, even benign online shopping sites will lack user feedback when they have just started, as there were only 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 phishy-looking reviews that have nothing to do with what the site offers for sale, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any indistinct or drivel reviews that may describe any item sold on the website should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on scam 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% markdowns are not feasible even during sales events such as the aforementioned Thanksgiving day. In some cases, scam sites 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 discount has its rational limits.

3. No customer support.

This is what distinguishes dishonest sites from the benign ones, even newly established. When a site is about to defraud the customers, 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 page will most likely 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 reach them out, there is a great possibility that these contacts will be dead silent to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your inquiry.

As scammers tend to reuse numbers and emails as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a different site, be sure you are 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 not a guarantee, as there are a lot of genuine 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: these methods do not suppose any refund options. 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 offer payments in crypto, which feature even less control. While crypto transactions expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different frauds.

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As scammers are unlikely to have any goods, they are not able to make unique pictures. Thus their only option is to hijack these images from other websites. When frauds sell identical goods on different pages, you can find such images on similarly-looking fraudulent pages. By reverse image searching 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

Rascals do not stop on stealing pictures. As rascals may use the same topic repeatedly, they reuse the same web design under the new URL, and voila – a new scam site 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 page you’ve started on. It allows you to unveil such scams 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 Karengibbs.shop Scam