Kgottone.bio is a fraudulent website that offers to purchase footwear at unusually discounted 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 this site is legitimate. 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 demonstrate the concerning indicators regarding the Kgottone.bio site, the way this fraud operates, and show how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping frauds in upcoming times.
Kgottone.bio Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Kgottone.bio may initially look like a authentic discounter or the seller of stock liquidation items. But a brief analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s fraudulence. Questionable advertising methods, unreasonably low prices, lack of user support and user feedback – this site fulfills the scam bingo right away.
| Website | Kgottone.bio |
| Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. United States, San Francisco |
| IP Address | 104.16.198.133 |
| Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
| Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
Kgottone.bio Scam
By purchasing on pages like Kgottone.bio, it is unlikely that you will receive the goods you’ve ordered. More typically, it results in one of 3 scenarios standard 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 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 particularly often case when ordering from pages that offer baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.
Wrong item. To make the purchase look more legitimate, but spend even less money on the delivered item, scammers may send a accidental item they have instead of your order. An old t-shirt instead of a brand new one, a dirty aluminum dish instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn really inventive in that case.
Absolutely nothing. This is the most typical outcome when ordering goods from websites like Kgottone.bio. Fraudsters take your money, promise the delivery, and then merely vanish. As scam websites are not going to exist for a long time, scammers do not bother themselves with creating even a vague sight of legitimacy.
Kgottone.bio scam – How does it work?
As any fraud, Kgottone.bio runs a simple and well-proven scheme of operations. It commonly consists of 3 stages, with certain deviations from time to time.
Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Frauds post abundant amounts of advertisements 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 legitimate, they do not suspect 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 disguise themselves as resellers of the liquidated stock of bankrupt retail companies.
Step 2 – Take the Money. Once consumers are on the website, swindlers do their best to make the customers buy something. Impossibly good 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 customers 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, 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 swindlers, “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 complaints and user feedback regarding the site being fraudulent, they just disappear. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough people are aware about the fraudulent activity, the profits will dry up, leaving fraudsters with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting speeds up the domain takedown.
Why is Kgottone.bio a Scam?
Well, we just talked about the way the scam site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is deceptive 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
Scam sites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no reason (and way) to make any online reputation with feedback. Obviously, even legit online shopping sites will lack customer reviews when they have just started, as there were not many clients 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 offers for sale, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any unclear or nonsense reviews that may describe any item sold on the website should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on dishonest sites 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% reductions are not trustworthy even during sales events such as the aforementioned Black Friday. In some cases, dishonest sites 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 sell-off has its sensible limits.
3. No customer support.
This is what distinguishes scam sites from the benign 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 (if it is present at all) – the page will likely have no support contacts at all.
Typically for fraudulent sites, the “About us” column is completely empty
When they offer an email, or even a phone to reach them out, there is a great chance that these contacts will be dead silent to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your question.
As scammers often 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 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 plenty of trustworthy shops using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. Each of the latter has the same pitfall I’ve already mentioned above: they do not suppose any refunds. 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 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 most likely don’t have any real items, they cannot create unique pictures. Thus their only option is simply to hijack these images from other websites. When scammers sell identical goods on different sites, you can find such pics on similarly-looking scam 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 frauds may parasite on the same topic repeatedly, they reuse the same web design under the new URL, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, reverse image search advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the copy of the site you’ve started on. It allows you to unveil such scams pretty easy, but crooks who stand behind them never aim at cautious users.
Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design
