Storefust.ch is a scam website that offers to buy items at extremely low prices. This site may look like a discounter or a reseller of goods from stock liquidation, but it is actually just a ploy to make you think about this site as a legitimate one. Upon ordering goods from this site, you will likely get nothing at all, or, at best, poor-quality or counterfeit items.
In this article, I will show the concerning indicators regarding the Storefust.ch site, the way this fraud operates, and explain how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping frauds in future.
Storefust.ch Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Storefust.ch may initially appear like a authentic discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a swift analysis shows a troubling amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s fraudulence. Questionable advertising methods, extremely low prices, absence of customer support and customer reviews – this site accomplishes the scam bingo right away.
| Website | Storefust.ch |
| Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. Canada, Ottawa |
| IP Address | 23.227.38.65 |
| Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
| Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
Storefust.ch Scam
By purchasing on websites like Storefust.ch, it is uncertain that you will obtain the items you’ve ordered. More typically, 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 fraudulent items of popular brands, the grade 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 frequent case when ordering from pages that market baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.
Wrong item. To make the purchase look real, but spend even less money on the delivered item, cheats may send a random item they have on hand instead of what you’ve ordered. A worn t-shirt instead of a new one, a dirty aluminum platter instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn really inventive in that case.
Absolutely nothing. This is the most typical situation when ordering goods from websites like Storefust.ch. Frauds take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply vanish. As scams do not aim to exist for a long time, scammers are not wasting time creating even a remote semblance of legitimacy.
Storefust.ch scam – How does it work?
As any fraud, Storefust.ch 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 advertisements on social media, particularly preferring Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Paid ads say exactly 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 benign, they do not suspect anything at this point. Ads become particularly compelling during major events that boost people’s interest in shopping, like Halloween, Black Friday, Christmas, etc. Sometimes, they mask themselves as resellers of the liquidated stock of bankrupt retail companies.
Step 2 – Take the Money. Once individuals are on the website, tricksters 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 about the site being a scam, they simply disappear. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough customers are aware about the deceptive activity, the money flow will dry up, leaving swindlers with no motivation to move on. Reporting the scam to the hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.
Why is Storefust.ch 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
Hoax sites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no reason (and way) to make any reputation with user reviews. Obviously, even legit online shopping sites will lack consumer comments when they have just started, 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 unrealistic reviews that have no relation to what the site offers for sale, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any blurred or nonsense reviews that may describe any item sold on the site should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on scam sites 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 feasible even during sales events such as the aforementioned Black Friday. In some cases, fraudulent websites set the prices low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be absurd, 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 reasonable limits.
3. No customer support.
That factor distinguishes deceptive websites from the legit 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 – the page will 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 reach them out, there is a huge possibility that these numbers and emails will be unresponsive to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your inquiry.
As scammers tend to reuse phone numbers and email addresses as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a totally 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 complementary, as there are a lot of benign services and shops using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. Each of the latter has 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 ask for payments in crypto, which is even less controllable than aforementioned payment methods. 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 fraudsters are unlikely to have any real items, they cannot shoot unique images. Thus their option is to steal these images from other websites. When scammers market identical goods on different websites, you can find same pics on similarly-designed scam pages. 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
This is the continuation of the stolen images I’ve just described. As scammers may use the same topic again and again, they reuse the same web design under the new URL, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, reverse image search on Google advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the identical copy of the original site. It allows you to uncover such frauds particularly easy, but criminals who run them never aim at cautious users.
Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design
