Sellmax.us is a deceptive website that offers to buy various clothing at unusually discounted prices. It 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. Upon placing an order on this site, you will likely get nothing at all, or, at best, inferior or counterfeit items.
In this article, I will highlight the concerning indicators regarding the Sellmax.us site, the way this fraud operates, and teach how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping frauds in upcoming times.
Sellmax.us Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Sellmax.us may initially look like a genuine discounter or the seller of stock liquidation items. But a quick analysis shows a disturbing amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s deception. Unfair advertising methods, unreasonably low prices, absence of customer support and user feedback – this site fulfills the fraud bingo right away.
| Website | Sellmax.us |
| Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. United States, San Francisco |
| IP Address | 188.114.96.3 |
| Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
| Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
Sellmax.us Scam
By shopping on pages like Sellmax.us, it is doubtful that you will acquire the items you’ve ordered. More frequently, it results in one of 3 scenarios characteristic for scam sites.
Counterfeit goods. Not the worst option, as you get at least something. But as it usually happens to fake items of popular brands, the attribute 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 especially common case when ordering from sites that sell baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.
Wrong item. To make the trade look real, but spend even less money on the actual item, cheats may send a random item they have on hand instead of what you’ve ordered. An old t-shirt instead of a new one, a scratched aluminum plate instead of a set of dishes – scammers may turn really inventive in that case.
Nothing at all. This is the most usual scenario when ordering from websites like Sellmax.us. Scams take your money, promise the delivery, and then merely vanish. As scams do not aim to exist for a long time, scams do not bother themselves with creating even a remote sight of legitimacy.
Sellmax.us scam – How does it work?
As any fraud, Sellmax.us 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. Frauds post massive amounts of promotions 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 benevolent, they do not doubt anything at this point. Ads become especially 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 customers are on the website, tricksters do their best to make the customers buy something. Mind-boggling 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 curious manner. Instead of more classic options for online shopping, like Visa/MasterCard payments or PayPal, swindlers 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 tricksters get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough grievances and user feedback regarding the site being a scam, they just vanish. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough individuals are aware about the fraudulent activity, the profits will dry up, leaving scammers with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.
Why is Sellmax.us a Scam?
Well, we just talked about the way the fraud site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is untrustworthy without risking your money. Fortunately, frauds 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 websites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no purpose (and way) to make any online reputation with reviews. Obviously, even legit online shopping sites will lack client testimonials when they have just started, since there were not many clients 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, once you face unrealistic reviews that have no relation to what the site sells, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any obscure or balderdash reviews that may describe any item sold on the site should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on fraudulent 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% markdowns are not trustworthy even during sales events such as the aforementioned Christmas. In some cases, fraudulent websites 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 for cheap, but every sell-off has its sane limits.
3. No customer support.
That factor distinguishes deceptive sites from the genuine ones, even newly established. When a site is about to rip off the buyers, 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 most likely have no contact info at all.
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 chance that these numbers and emails will be unresponsive to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your inquiry.
As scoundrels tend to reuse phone numbers and email addresses for specifying them as “support”, you can search them on Google. When they are used on a different website, be sure that this is 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 legit services 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 attracts scammers – once you paid for the order, there’s no way 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 fraudsters.
5. Items’ images are sourced from another page
As scams most likely don’t have any real items on hand, they cannot shoot unique pictures. Thus their option is simply to hijack these images from other websites. When rascals sell the same items on different websites, you can find same images on similarly-looking scam pages. By searching for the image 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 steal only pictures. As frauds may parasite on the same topic again and again, they use the same site 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 identical copy of the original site. It allows you to unveil such frauds particularly easy, but criminals who run them never aim at cautious users.
Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design
