Nubiksneaker.com Fact Check: Legitimate or Shady Scam?

Nubiksneaker.com is a deceptive website that offers to purchase items at unusually discounted 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, poor-quality or counterfeit items.

In this article, I will highlight the red flags regarding the Nubiksneaker.com shop, the way this scam operates, and show how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping frauds in upcoming times.

Nubiksneaker.com Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Nubiksneaker.com may initially seem like a legit discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a swift analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s fraudulence. Unfair advertising methods, extremely low prices, absence of customer support and user testimonials – this site accomplishes the scam bingo right away.

Nubiksneaker.com Scam

By shopping on websites like Nubiksneaker.com, it is uncertain that you will receive the goods you’ve ordered. More frequently, it results in one of 3 scenarios typical for scam sites.

Counterfeit goods. Not the worst option, as you get at least something. But as it usually happens to counterfeit 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 promote baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the deal look legit, but spend even less money on the delivered item, scammers may send a accidental item they have instead of what you’ve ordered. A worn t-shirt instead of a brand new one, a dirty aluminum platter instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn quite inventive in that case.

Nothing at all. This is the most common outcome when ordering items from sites like Nubiksneaker.com. Scams take your money, promise the delivery, and then merely disappear. As scams are not going to exist for a long time, scammers are not wasting effort creating even a vague visibility of legitimacy.

Nubiksneaker.com scam – How does it work?

As any scam, Nubiksneaker.com follows a simple and well-proven modus operandi. It commonly consists of 3 stages, with some slight deviations from time to time.

Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Frauds post abundant amounts of promotions 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 consider ads on the mentioned platforms benevolent, they do not doubt anything at this point. Ads become particularly 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 users are on the site, swindlers do their best to make the individuals buy something. Impossibly good deals, additional discounts, 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 unusual 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 tricksters, “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 grievances and user feedback regarding the site being a scam, they just disappear. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough customers know about the fraudulent activity, the profits will dry up, leaving cheats with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.

Why is Nubiksneaker.com a Scam?

Well, we just talked about the way the scam site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is untrustworthy 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

Hoax sites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no purpose (and way) to make any online reputation with reviews. Obviously, even legit shopping sites will lack buyer opinions 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.

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 nonsense reviews that may describe any item sold on the website should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on deceptive 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% discounts are not feasible even during sales events such as the aforementioned Christmas. In some cases, dishonest sites have the initial price low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be outrageous, 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 logical limits.

3. No customer support.

That factor distinguishes scam websites from the legit ones, even newly established. When a site is about to scam the customers, 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 site 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 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 question.

As scoundrels 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’re 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 plenty of legit services using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or payment systems like them. 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 attracts scammers – once you’ve sent the money, nothing will help you to get the money back.

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

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As frauds most likely don’t have any real items, they are not able to make unique pictures. Thus their option is simply to steal these images from other sites. When frauds market identical items on different websites, you can find same images on similarly-looking scam pages. 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

Scammers do not stop on stealing photos. As scammers may scam people on the same topic again and again, they reuse the same site design under the new address, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, reverse image search advice from the previous paragraph may lead you to the copy of the page you’ve started on. It makes uncovering such frauds pretty easy, but criminals who run them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the Nubiksneaker.com Scam