Timberlandmarketing.com Scam Store: A Fake Timberland Website

Timberlandmarketing.com is a scam website that offers to buy items from Timberland 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 story to make you think about this site as a legitimate one. Upon ordering goods 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 warning signs regarding the Timberlandmarketing.com shop, the way this deception operates, and explain how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in upcoming times.

Timberlandmarketing.com Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Timberlandmarketing.com may initially seem like a legit discounter or the seller of stock liquidation items. But a swift analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s deception. Unfair advertising methods, excessively low prices, lack of user support and user feedback – this site completes the fraud bingo right away.

Timberlandmarketing.com Scam

By purchasing on pages like Timberlandmarketing.com, it is doubtful that you will receive the goods you’ve ordered. More typically, it results in one of 3 scenarios standard 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 standard will be inferior, to say the least. Eventually, the site may notify 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 promote baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the deal look real, but spend even less money on the actual item, frauds may send a incidental item they have on hand instead of what you’ve ordered. An old t-shirt instead of a brand new one, a scratched aluminum platter instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn quite inventive in that case.

Nothing at all. This is the most frequent scenario when ordering goods from websites like Timberlandmarketing.com. Frauds take your money, promise the delivery, and then merely disappear. As scams are not going to exist for a long time, scammers are not wasting effort creating even a slight semblance of legitimacy.

Timberlandmarketing.com scam – How does it work?

As any scam, Timberlandmarketing.com 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 advertisements on online platforms, 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 benevolent, they do not doubt anything at this point. Ads become especially convincing 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 users are on the website, tricksters do their best to make the customers 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 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, scammers 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 scoundrels get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough complaints and user feedback regarding the site being fraudulent, they simply disappear. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough individuals are aware about the dishonest activity, the money flow will dry up, leaving swindlers with no motivation to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.

Why is Timberlandmarketing.com a Scam?

Well, we just talked about the way the fraud site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is fraudulent without risking your money. Fortunately, fraudsters 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 reason (and way) to make any online reputation with reviews. Obviously, even legit shopping sites will lack consumer comments when they have just started, since there were only a few patrons 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, when you face phishy-looking reviews that have no relation to what the site sells, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any unclear or nonsense reviews that may describe any item sold on the website should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on scam 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% discounts are not trustworthy 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 reasonable limits.

3. No customer support.

That factor distinguishes deceptive sites from the legit ones, even newly established. When a site is about to defraud 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 have no contact info at all.

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

When they offer an email, or even a phone to contact them, there is a great chance that these contacts will be dead silent 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 as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a completely different website, 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 plenty of legit services and shops using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or payment systems like them. All of them though have the same pitfall I’ve already mentioned above: they do not suppose any refunds. And this is what attracts scammers – once you’ve sent the money, nothing will help you to get the money back.

Some sites 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 scammers.

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As scammers most likely don’t have any real items on hand, they are not able to make unique pictures. Thus their option is simply to steal these images elsewhere. When rascals market the same goods on different sites, you can find such pics on similarly-designed fraudulent 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 scam people on the same topic again and again, they use the same site design under the new address, and voila – a new scam site is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, image search on Google advice from the previous paragraph may lead you to the copy of the page you’ve started on. It makes uncovering such frauds particularly easy, but scoundrels who create them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the Timberlandmarketing.com Scam