Treatstars.shop is a fraudulent website that offers to buy items at unusually discounted 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 ordering from this site, you will most likely get nothing at all, or, at best, inferior or counterfeit items.
In this article, I will demonstrate the warning signs regarding the Treatstars.shop store, the way this deception operates, and teach how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping deceptions in upcoming times.
Treatstars.shop Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Treatstars.shop may initially look like a genuine discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a swift analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s deception. Unfair advertising methods, extremely low prices, absence of customer support and user reviews – this site completes the fraud bingo right away.
| Website | Treatstars.shop |
| Hosting | AS209242 Cloudflare London, LLC Canada, Toronto |
| IP Address | 216.120.131.66 |
| Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
| Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
Treatstars.shop Scam
By purchasing items on websites like Treatstars.shop, it is unlikely that you will get the items you’ve ordered. More often, it results in one of 3 cases standard for scam sites.
Counterfeit goods. Not the worst option, as you get at least something. But as it usually happens to counterfeit items of popular brands, the characteristic 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 notably common case when ordering from sites that offer baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.
Wrong item. To make the transaction look real, but spend even less money on the actual item, scammers may ship a incidental item they have on hand instead of your order. An old t-shirt instead of a branded one, a dirty aluminum platter 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 Treatstars.shop. Frauds take your money, promise the delivery, and then just disappear. As scams are not going to exist for a long time, frauds are not wasting effort creating even a vague visibility of legitimacy.
Treatstars.shop scam – How does it work?
As any scam, Treatstars.shop 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 promotions on online platforms, 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 consider ads on the mentioned platforms genuine, they do not doubt anything at this point. Ads become particularly persuasive 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 consumers are on the site, 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 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, tricksters 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 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 individuals are aware about the dishonest activity, the money flow will dry up, leaving fraudsters with no motivation to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting speeds up the domain takedown.
Why is Treatstars.shop 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 sites 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 customer reviews shortly after the start, 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 phishy-looking reviews that have nothing to do with what the site offers for sale, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any unclear or gibberish 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. 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% reductions are not trustworthy even during sales events such as the aforementioned Thanksgiving day. In some cases, fraudulent sites have the initial price low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be ridiculous, like $30 for a bed or $10 for a branded leather bag. Goods may be sold for cheap, but every discount has its logical limits.
3. No customer support.
This is what distinguishes deceptive sites from the benign ones, even newly established. When a site is about to rip off the clients, 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 site will likely 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 number to reach them out, there is a huge 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 tend to reuse phone numbers and email addresses for specifying them as “support”, you can search them on Google. When they are mentioned 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 not a guarantee, as there are plenty of legit shops using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or payment systems like them. 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 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 scams.
5. Items’ images are sourced from another page
As scams most likely don’t have any items, they are not able to shoot unique pictures. Thus their only option is to steal these images from other websites. When scammers offer the same items on different websites, you can find same pics on similarly-designed fraudulent 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
Scammers do not stop on stealing pics. As frauds may use the same topic again and again, they reuse the same web design under the new address, and voila – a new scam site is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, reverse image search on Google advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the copy of the original site. It makes uncovering such scams particularly easy, but criminals who run them never aim at cautious users.
Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design
Is your PC infected?
There are cases when Treatstars.shop website, together with similar scam sites, are promoted by malware. Adware and browser hijackers are malware types that aim specifically at such purposes. If you notice excessive amounts of ads appearing in your browser, have your search inquiries going into an unusual search engine and some random pages open time to time, scan your computer 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 Treatstars.shop Scam
Treatstars.shop 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 multiple warning signs to watch out for. First and foremost, Treatstars.shop shop recently set up its webpage, which is a common characteristic of brief scam sites that swiftly disappear. Secondly, the site lacks contact information such as a phone number, physical address, or instant messaging choice, making it hard to resolve problems or queries. Third, it shows bogus company details, giving no real data about the enterprise behind the webpage. Furthermore, this scam entices shoppers with exaggerated rebates and sales offers, slashing prices by over 70% or even 90%. Additionally, Treatstars.shop plagiarizes content and product images from authentic web shops like Alibaba, Amazon, and Aliexpress, demonstrating a absence of originality and credibility. In addition, despite asserting to offer trendy and chic goods, the webpage lacks any online networking presence or links to social media platforms. To conclude, real client testimonials is completely absent, with reports of delayed or absent deliveries, substandard customer service, faulty or incorrect products, refund difficulties, and unapproved billing 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 Treatstars.shop:
- 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 Treatstars.shop as a fraudulent site and urge them to block future charges from it.
- Promptly change your passwords if you have a Treatstars.shop 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 Treatstars.shop 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, Treatstars.shop does not have genuine customer feedback or testimonials. The absence of legitimate customer reviews further indicates its untrustworthiness and potentially fraudulent nature.
