We Dug Into OUTLETUK.CO: Legit Store or A Scam?

OUTLETUK.CO is a fraudulent website that offers to buy items 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 about this site as a legitimate one. Upon ordering 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 red flags regarding the OUTLETUK.CO shop, the way this deception operates, and explain how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping deceptions in upcoming times.

OUTLETUK.CO Site – Scam Overview

As I said, OUTLETUK.CO may initially appear like a authentic discounter or the seller of stock liquidation items. But a short analysis shows a disturbing amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s fraudulence. Questionable advertising methods, extremely low prices, absence of customer support and customer reviews – this site fulfills the scam bingo right away.

OUTLETUK.CO Scam

By shopping on websites like OUTLETUK.CO, it is questionable that you will acquire the items you’ve ordered. More frequently, it results in one of 3 instances characteristic 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 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 sites that offer baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the transaction look legit, but spend even less money on the actual item, cheats may send a random item they have on hand instead of your order. An old t-shirt instead of a new one, a scratched aluminum plate instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn quite inventive in that case.

Nothing at all. This is the most usual scenario when ordering goods from pages like OUTLETUK.CO. Fraudsters take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply disappear. As scam websites do not aim to exist for a long time, scammers do not bother themselves with creating even a faint sight of legitimacy.

OUTLETUK.CO scam – How does it work?

As any scam, OUTLETUK.CO 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. Frauds post abundant amounts of advertisements on social media, particularly preferring Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Paid ads say 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 genuine, 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 customers are on the website, tricksters do their best to make the consumers buy something. Mind-boggling deals, additional discounts, free shipping, 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 curious 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 tricksters get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough grievances and user reports about the site being a scam, they just disappear. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough individuals know about the deceptive activity, the profits will dry up, leaving swindlers with no motivation to move on. Reporting the scam to the hosting speeds up the domain takedown.

Why is OUTLETUK.CO a Scam?

Well, we just talked about the way the scam site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is fraudulent 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 purpose (and way) to make any online reputation with reviews. Obviously, even benign online shopping sites will lack client testimonials shortly after the start, as there were not many customers 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 no relation to what the site markets, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any obscure or nonsense 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% discounts are not feasible even during sales events such as the aforementioned Christmas. In some cases, dishonest websites 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 for cheap, but every sell-off has its sensible limits.

3. No customer support.

This is what distinguishes dishonest websites from the legit ones, even newly established. When a site is about to defraud the clients, 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 have no support contacts whatsoever.

Typically for fraudulent websites, 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 emails and numbers will be dead silent to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your question.

As scoundrels tend to reuse phone numbers and email addresses 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 whole lot of benign services using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. All of them though have the same feature 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 websites may also offer 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 frauds.

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As frauds most likely don’t have any real items on hand, they cannot make unique pictures. Thus their option is simply to steal these images elsewhere. When rascals offer identical goods on different sites, you can find same pics on similarly-designed fraudulent 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 again and again, they reuse the same web design under the new address, 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 original site. It makes uncovering such scams particularly easy, but scammers who run them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the OUTLETUK.CO Scam