Is Trendytowns.co Legit or a Ripoff? Our In-Depth Investigation

Trendytowns.co is a deceptive website that offers to buy items at exceptionally cheap prices. It may appear as a discounter, or as a marketplace for warehouse liquidation items, but it is actually just a ploy 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 Trendytowns.co site, the way this scam operates, and show how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping deceptions in future.

Trendytowns.co Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Trendytowns.co may initially seem like a legit discounter or the seller of stock liquidation items. But a quick analysis shows a disturbing amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s deception. Questionable advertising methods, extremely low prices, lack of customer support and user reviews – this site completes the fraud bingo right away.

Trendytowns.co Scam

By purchasing items on websites like Trendytowns.co, it is doubtful that you will acquire the goods you’ve ordered. More commonly, it results in one of 3 instances common 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 mention 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 pages that market baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the deal look legit, but spend even less money on the delivered item, frauds may ship a random item they have instead of what you’ve ordered. An old t-shirt instead of a new one, a scratched aluminum dish instead of a set of dishes – scammers may turn rather inventive in that case.

Absolutely nothing. This is the most usual scenario when ordering items from sites like Trendytowns.co. Scams take your money, promise the delivery, and then merely disappear. As scams do not aim to exist for a long time, scammers are not wasting effort creating even a remote semblance of legitimacy.

Trendytowns.co scam – How does it work?

As any scam, Trendytowns.co 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. Scammers post abundant amounts of marketing on online platforms, 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 deem ads on the mentioned platforms legitimate, they do not suspect anything at this point. Ads become particularly 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 consumers are on the site, scammers do their best to make the individuals 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 consumers 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, 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 fraudsters, “no refunds” is a part of their policy which you agree on upon registration.

Step 3 – Vanish. Once crooks 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 people know about the fraudulent activity, the profits will dry up, leaving scammers with no motivation to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting speeds up the domain takedown.

Why is Trendytowns.co a Scam?

Well, we just talked about the way the hoax 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

Fraud sites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no purpose (and way) to make any online reputation with user reviews. Obviously, even legit shopping sites will lack client testimonials shortly after the start, since there were just a few 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 nothing to do with what the site offers for sale, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any vague or balderdash 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% reductions are not feasible even during sales events such as the aforementioned Black Friday. In some cases, deceptive websites have the initial price 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 sell-off has its sensible limits.

3. No customer support.

This is what distinguishes scam sites from the genuine ones, even newly established. When a site is about to scam the clients, 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 most likely have no contact info 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 huge chance that these contacts will be unresponsive to your request. This, or they will answer you with generic text regardless of your inquiry.

As frauds tend to reuse phone numbers and email addresses as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they are mentioned 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 complementary, as there are plenty of legit shops using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or payment systems like them. Each of the latter has the same pitfall 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 sites may also offer payments in cryptocurrency, which feature even less control. While crypto payments expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different rascals.

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As frauds are unlikely to have any goods on hand, they are not able to shoot unique pics. Thus their only option is simply to hijack these images elsewhere. When fraudsters market identical items on different sites, you can find same images on similarly-designed scam sites. By reverse image searching 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

Frauds do not stop on stealing pictures. As frauds may parasite on the same topic again and again, they use 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 I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the identical copy of the original site. It makes uncovering such frauds particularly easy, but criminals who run them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the Trendytowns.co Scam