Tail-tale.com.au is a deceptive website that offers to buy items at unusually discounted prices. It may appear as a discounter, or as a marketplace for warehouse liquidation items, but it is in fact just a narrative to make you think this site is legitimate. Upon placing an order on this site, you will likely get nothing at all, or, at best, poor-quality or counterfeit items.
In this article, I will demonstrate the warning signs regarding the Tail-tale.com.au store, the way this fraud operates, and explain how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in future.
Tail-tale.com.au Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Tail-tale.com.au may initially appear like a authentic discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a quick analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s fraudulence. Questionable advertising methods, extremely low prices, absence of user support and customer testimonials – this site fulfills the scam bingo right away.
| Website | Tail-tale.com.au |
| Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. Canada, Ottawa |
| IP Address | 23.227.38.65 |
| Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
| Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
Tail-tale.com.au Scam
By purchasing on websites like Tail-tale.com.au, it is uncertain that you will obtain the goods you’ve ordered. More often, it results in one of 3 instances typical 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 grade 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 often case when ordering from sites that promote 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 incidental item they have instead of what you’ve ordered. An old t-shirt instead of a branded one, a dirty aluminum plate instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn really inventive in that case.
Absolutely nothing. This is the most typical case when ordering items from websites like Tail-tale.com.au. Fraudsters take your money, promise the delivery, and then merely vanish. As scams do not aim to exist for a long time, scammers are not wasting effort creating even a vague semblance of legitimacy.
Tail-tale.com.au scam – How does it work?
As any fraud, Tail-tale.com.au runs a simple and well-proven scheme of operations. It commonly 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 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 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 disguise 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 consumers buy something. Impossibly good deals, additional discount promo codes, 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 strange manner. Instead of more classic options for online shopping, like Visa/MasterCard payments or PayPal, deceivers 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 deceivers, “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 complaints and user reports regarding the site being fraudulent, they just vanish. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough people are aware about the fraudulent activity, the profits will dry up, leaving scammers with no motivation to move on. Reporting the scam to the hosting speeds up the domain takedown.
Why is Tail-tale.com.au a Scam?
Well, we just talked about the way the fraud site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is deceptive 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 user reviews. Obviously, even benign online shopping sites will lack client testimonials when they have just started, as there were not many clients 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, once you face phishy-looking reviews that have nothing to do with what the site sells, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any obscure or nonsense reviews that may describe any item sold on the website should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on dishonest websites 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% markdowns are not trustworthy even during sales events such as the aforementioned Black Friday. In some cases, deceptive 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 reasonable limits.
3. No customer support.
This is what distinguishes dishonest sites from the genuine ones, even newly established. When a site is about to defraud the customers, there’s no need to waste time on answering their questions. Check out the “About us” or “Info” page – the site will 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 reach them out, there is a huge possibility that these contacts will be unresponsive to your request. This, or they will answer you with generic text regardless of your question.
As scammers tend to reuse phone numbers and email addresses for specifying them as “support”, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a totally different website, 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 complementary, as there are plenty of genuine shops using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. 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 makes it so attractive to scammers – once you paid for the order, nothing will help you to get the money back.
Some websites 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 frauds.
5. Items’ images are sourced from another page
As scammers most likely don’t have any real items, they cannot shoot unique pictures. Thus their option is simply to hijack these images from other sites. When rascals market identical goods on different websites, you can find same images on similarly-designed fraudulent pages. By searching for the image 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 pics. As scammers may parasite on the same topic again and again, they put the same web design under the new URL, and voila – a new scam site is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, reverse image search on Google advice from the previous paragraph may lead you to the identical copy of the page you’ve started on. It makes uncovering such scams pretty easy, but scammers who run them never aim at cautious users.
Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design
Is your PC infected?
There are situations when Tail-tale.com.au site, together with similar scam sites, are promoted by malware. Adware and browser hijackers are two particular malware types that aim specifically at such purposes. If you see excessive amounts of ads appearing in your web browser, see your search queries redirected into an unusual search engine and some random pages open time to time, consider scanning your device with GridinSoft Anti-Malware. This will help you to get rid of annoying promotions and scam sites.
Remove malware with Gridinsoft Anti-Malware
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Frequently Asked Questions about the Tail-tale.com.au Scam
Tail-tale.com.au operates as a scam website that pretends to be an online store selling various items at low prices. However, it is involved in fraudulent activities and aims to deceive customers by sending counterfeit or inferior products or not delivering anything at all.
There are several indicators that point at fraudulent nature of Tail-tale.com.au shop. To begin with, Tail-tale.com.au shop recently set up its online platform, which is a typical feature of brief deceptive sites that swiftly vanish. Second, the website lacks contact information such as a telephone number, physical address, or real-time chat alternative, making it difficult to tackle matters or queries. Third, it shows bogus business information, giving no genuine details about the enterprise behind the webpage. Furthermore, this fraudulent scheme entices buyers with unrealistic discounts and sales offers, cutting prices by over 70% or even 90%. Furthermore, Tail-tale.com.au plagiarizes content and product images from legitimate e-commerce platforms like Alibaba, Amazon, and Aliexpress, showing a shortage of unique ideas and credibility. In addition, despite claiming to provide trendy and stylish goods, the webpage lacks any online networking presence or links to social media platforms. Lastly, real customer feedback is completely absent, with reports of delayed or absent deliveries, poor client assistance, faulty or wrong products, reimbursement difficulties, and illegitimate charges on credit cards.
No, it is not a legitimate or reliable website. The aforementioned red flags indicate that it lacks credibility and has been reported as a scam site. Customers have experienced receiving counterfeit products or facing difficulties in obtaining refunds or contacting the company.
Take the following steps if you have made a purchase on Tail-tale.com.au:
- Firstly, immediately contact your bank or financial institution if you paid with a credit card or debit card. Request them to cancel the transaction and initiate a refund. Additionally, report Tail-tale.com.au as a fraudulent site and urge them to block future charges from it.
- Promptly change your passwords if you have a Tail-tale.com.au account or use the same password for other online accounts. Consider enabling two-factor authentication to enhance security against hackers attempting to access your accounts and steal personal information.
- Beware of phishing emails related to your Tail-tale.com.au order. Treat any emails offering discounts or refunds as phishing attempts. Avoid clicking on suspicious links or downloading attachments that may contain malware. Delete such emails immediately.
- To prevent malicious ads, Trojans, phishing attempts, and other undesirable content, use a browser-based content blocker like AdGuard. This will complement your antivirus software and provide enhanced protection.
- If you suspect your device is infected with malware, scan it using Gridinsoft Anti-Malware to ensure your security.
No, Tail-tale.com.au does not have genuine customer feedback or testimonials. The absence of legitimate customer reviews further indicates its untrustworthiness and potentially fraudulent nature.
