Analyzing Spreadds.live: Should You Trust It? Our Take

Spreadds.live is a fraudulent website that offers to buy flowers at extremely low prices. It may look like a discounter or a reseller of goods from stock liquidation, but it is in fact just a narrative to make you think about this site as a legitimate one. After placing an order on this site, you will most likely get nothing at all, or, at best, inferior or counterfeit items.

In this article, I will demonstrate the red flags regarding the Spreadds.live site, the way this deception operates, and teach how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in future.

Spreadds.live Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Spreadds.live may initially look like a legit discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a brief analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s dishonesty. Unfair advertising methods, unreasonably low prices, lack of customer support and user testimonials – this site accomplishes the fraud bingo right away.

Spreadds.live Scam

By purchasing on sites like Spreadds.live, it is uncertain that you will receive the goods you’ve ordered. More often, it results in one of 3 cases 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 quality 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 particularly often 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, frauds may send a accidental item they have instead of what you’ve ordered. A worn t-shirt instead of a brand new one, a scratched aluminum plate instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn really inventive in that case.

Absolutely nothing. This is the most usual case when ordering goods from sites like Spreadds.live. Fraudsters take your money, promise the delivery, and then just vanish. As scam sites are not going to exist for a long time, frauds do not bother themselves with creating even a faint visibility of legitimacy.

Spreadds.live scam – How does it work?

As any scam, Spreadds.live 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 massive 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 regard ads on the mentioned platforms benign, they do not doubt 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 users are on the site, swindlers do their best to make the users buy something. Mind-boggling deals, additional discount promo codes, free shipping, 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 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 tricksters, “no refunds” is a part of their policy which you agree on upon registration.

Step 3 – Vanish. Once scoundrels get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough complaints and user feedback regarding the site being fraudulent, they just vanish. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough individuals know about the dishonest activity, the money flow will dry up, leaving swindlers with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the hosting speeds up the domain takedown.

Why is Spreadds.live 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, scammers 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 feedback. Obviously, even legit online shopping sites will lack buyer opinions shortly after the start, since there were just a few consumers 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 sells, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any obscure or drivel reviews that may describe any item sold on the site should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on deceptive 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 ludicrous, 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 sane limits.

3. No customer support.

This is what distinguishes deceptive websites from the benign ones, even newly established. When a site is about to scam 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 site will likely have no support contacts whatsoever.

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

When they offer a contact email, or even a phone number to contact them, there is a great chance that these contacts will be unresponsive to your request. This, or they will answer you with generic text regardless of your question.

As scammers often reuse phone numbers and email addresses for specifying them as “support”, you can search them on Google. When they are used on a different site, be sure you are facing 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 not a guarantee, as there are a whole lot of genuine services using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or payment systems like them. 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, nothing will help you to get the money back.

Some websites may also ask for payments in cryptocurrency, which is even less controllable than aforementioned payment methods. While crypto transactions expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different rascals.

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As rascals are unlikely to have any real items on hand, they are not able to shoot unique images. Thus their only option is to hijack these images from other websites. When rascals sell identical items on different pages, you can find such 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

Rascals do not copy only pics. As frauds may scam people on the same topic again and again, they put the same site design under the new web-address, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, reverse image search on Google advice from the previous paragraph may lead you to the copy of the original site. It allows you to uncover such frauds pretty easy, but scammers who create them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the Spreadds.live Scam