Labuboxes.com Scam Store: A Fake Online Shop

Labuboxes.com is a scam website that offers to purchase labubus 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 ploy to make you think about this site as a legitimate one. After 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 highlight the red flags regarding the Labuboxes.com store, the way this fraud operates, and show how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in future.

Labuboxes.com Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Labuboxes.com may initially appear like a genuine discounter or the seller of stock liquidation items. But a short analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s deception. Questionable advertising methods, excessively low prices, absence of user support and user reviews – this site fulfills the scam bingo right away.

Labuboxes.com Scam

By shopping on pages like Labuboxes.com, it is doubtful that you will receive the goods you’ve ordered. More frequently, it results in one of 3 instances 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 attribute will be inferior, to say the least. Eventually, the site may mention 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 websites that sell baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the transaction look legit, but spend even less money on the delivered item, rascals may send a incidental item they have on hand instead of your order. A worn t-shirt instead of a branded one, a dirty aluminum dish instead of a set of dishes – scammers may turn rather inventive in that case.

Absolutely nothing. This is the most typical outcome when ordering from pages like Labuboxes.com. Frauds take your money, promise the delivery, and then merely disappear. As scams do not aim to exist for a long time, fraudsters do not bother themselves with creating even a faint visibility of legitimacy.

Labuboxes.com scam – How does it work?

As any fraud, Labuboxes.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 huge amounts of marketing 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 benign, they do not doubt anything at this point. Ads become particularly convincing 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 customers 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 customers 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, 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 scammers, “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 grievances and user reports about the site being fraudulent, they simply disappear. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough individuals know about the fraudulent activity, the money flow will dry up, leaving cheats with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting speeds up the domain takedown.

Why is Labuboxes.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

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 legit shopping sites will lack user feedback shortly after the start, since there were not many 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 blurred or absurdity reviews that may describe any item sold on the site should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on fraudulent 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% markdowns are not trustworthy even during sales events such as the aforementioned Christmas. In some cases, deceptive sites set the prices low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be preposterous, 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 fraudulent websites from the legit 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 most likely have no contact info whatsoever.

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

When they offer an email, or even a phone number to contact them, there is a huge possibility that these numbers and emails will be dead silent to your request. This, or they will answer you with generic text regardless of your question.

As frauds tend to 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 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 shops and services using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. All of them though have 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, nothing will help you to get the money back.

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

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As fraudsters are unlikely to have any real items, they cannot create unique pics. Thus their only option is simply to hijack these images elsewhere. When frauds offer identical goods on different websites, you can find same images on similarly-looking fraudulent sites. 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

Frauds do not stop on stealing pictures. As frauds may scam people on the same topic repeatedly, they use the same site design under the new address, 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 original site. It allows you to unveil such scams pretty easy, but crooks who create them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the Labuboxes.com Scam