Kupon-vip.com is a scam website that offers to purchase women clothing at exceptionally cheap prices. It may look like a discounter or a reseller of goods from stock liquidation, but it is in fact just a ploy to make you think this site is legitimate. Upon ordering goods from this site, you will most likely get nothing at all, or, at best, inferior or counterfeit items.
In this article, I will show the warning signs regarding the Kupon-vip.com site, the way this scam operates, and show how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping frauds in upcoming times.
Kupon-vip.com Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Kupon-vip.com may initially appear like a genuine discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a quick analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s deception. Questionable advertising methods, excessively low prices, lack of user support and customer testimonials – this site fulfills the fraud bingo right away.
Website | Kupon-vip.com |
Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. United States, San Francisco |
IP Address | 104.18.24.121 |
Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
By purchasing items on websites like Kupon-vip.com, it is unlikely that you will acquire the goods you’ve ordered. More commonly, it results in one of 3 situations typical 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 standard 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 common case when ordering from sites 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, frauds may ship a random item they have instead of your order. A worn t-shirt instead of a new one, a dirty aluminum platter instead of a set of dishes – scammers may turn rather inventive in that case.
Nothing at all. This is the most common outcome when ordering from pages like Kupon-vip.com. Frauds take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply disappear. As scam sites are not going to exist for a long time, fraudsters are not wasting time creating even a slight semblance of legitimacy.
Kupon-vip.com scam – How does it work?
As any fraud, Kupon-vip.com follows a simple and well-proven modus operandi. It usually consists of 3 stages, with some slight 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.
As users consider 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 site, deceivers do their best to make the individuals buy something. Mind-boggling 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 individuals stick to the offers and proceed to paying for the order.
Payments are done in a peculiar manner. Instead of more classic options for online shopping, like Visa/MasterCard payments or PayPal, tricksters 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 swindlers get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough grievances and user feedback about 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 dishonest activity, the profits will dry up, leaving swindlers with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting speeds up the domain takedown.
Why is Kupon-vip.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 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
Fraud websites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no reason (and way) to make any online reputation with feedback. Obviously, even benign shopping sites will lack consumer comments when they have just started, since there were just a few consumers yet. For that reason, this sign is not stand-alone and must be confirmed with other signs or indicators.
However, when you face phishy-looking reviews that have no relation to what the site markets, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any unclear or absurdity reviews that may describe any item sold on the site should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on dishonest websites 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 Thanksgiving day. In some cases, dishonest websites set the prices low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be ridiculous, 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 reasonable limits.
3. No customer support.
This is what distinguishes dishonest websites from the benign ones, even newly established. When a site is about to rip off the buyers, there’s no need to bother about answering their questions. Check out the “About us” or “Info” page (if it is present at all) – the page will most likely have no contact info at all.
When they offer a contact email, or even a phone number to contact them, there is a huge chance that these emails and numbers will be unresponsive to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your inquiry.
As frauds tend to reuse phone numbers and email addresses as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a totally different site, be sure that this is a blatant scam.
4. Payments via payment systems that does not support refunds
This scam indicator is not a guarantee, as there are a whole lot of trustworthy services using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. 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 paid for the order, nothing will help you to get the money back.
Some websites may also offer payments in cryptocurrency, which feature even less control. While cryptocurrency payments expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different scams.
5. Items’ images are sourced from another page
As scammers are unlikely to have any items, they cannot create unique pictures. Thus their option is simply to hijack these images elsewhere. When crooks market the same goods on different sites, you can find such pics on similarly-looking scam pages. By reverse image searching on Google, you can prove whether the image is unique or not.
6. Design repeats the one of a different page
Scammers do not stop on stealing pictures. As frauds may parasite on the same topic repeatedly, they put the same site design under the new address, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, image search on Google advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the identical copy of the original site. It allows you to unveil such scams particularly easy, but scoundrels who stand behind them never aim at cautious users.
Is your PC infected?
There are cases when Kupon-vip.com site, along with similar scam sites, are promoted by malware. Adware and browser hijackers are malware types that aim specifically at such purposes. If you notice excessive ads appearing in your browser, have your search inquiries going into a different search engine and some random pages open time to time, consider scanning 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
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Frequently Asked Questions about the Kupon-vip.com Scam
Kupon-vip.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 indicators that point at fraudulent nature of Kupon-vip.com shop. To begin with, Kupon-vip.com shop recently established its website, which is a common trait of ephemeral scam sites that quickly vanish. Secondly, the website lacks contact information such as a phone number, physical address, or real-time chat alternative, making it difficult to tackle issues or queries. Thirdly, it provides bogus company details, offering no real data about the enterprise behind the online platform. Furthermore, this deceptive tactic entices shoppers with unrealistic price cuts and sales offers, reducing prices by over 70% or even 90%. Moreover, Kupon-vip.com plagiarizes text and product images from legitimate e-commerce platforms like Alibaba, Amazon, and Aliexpress, showing a lack of innovation and trustworthiness. Moreover, despite claiming to offer trendy and fashionable goods, the webpage lacks any social media presence or links to social media platforms. To conclude, genuine customer feedback is completely absent, with reports of delayed or absent deliveries, poor customer support, faulty or incorrect products, reimbursement difficulties, and unapproved charges 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 Kupon-vip.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 Kupon-vip.com as a fraudulent site and urge them to block future charges from it.
- Promptly change your passwords if you have a Kupon-vip.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 Kupon-vip.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, Kupon-vip.com does not have genuine customer feedback or testimonials. The absence of legitimate customer reviews further indicates its untrustworthiness and potentially fraudulent nature.