Vicichic.shop Scam Store: What You Need To Know

Vicichic.shop is a fraudulent 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 in fact just a ploy to make you think this site is legitimate. After ordering 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 warning signs regarding the Vicichic.shop store, the way this deception operates, and show how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping frauds in future.

Vicichic.shop Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Vicichic.shop may initially seem like a authentic discounter or the seller of stock liquidation items. But a short analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s dishonesty. Questionable advertising methods, unreasonably low prices, lack of user support and user testimonials – this site completes the fraud bingo right away.

Vicichic.shop Scam

By purchasing items on pages like Vicichic.shop, it is questionable that you will acquire the goods 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 fake items of popular brands, the attribute 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 often case when ordering from websites that promote baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the purchase look legit, but spend even less money on the delivered item, frauds may send a random item they have instead of your order. A worn t-shirt instead of a new one, a scratched aluminum dish instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn really inventive in that case.

Absolutely nothing. This is the most typical scenario when ordering items from pages like Vicichic.shop. Scams take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply disappear. As scam websites are not going to exist for a long time, scammers are not wasting time creating even a slight visibility of legitimacy.

Vicichic.shop scam – How does it work?

As any fraud, Vicichic.shop runs a simple and well-proven modus operandi. It usually consists of 3 stages, with some slight deviations from time to time.

Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Frauds 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 regard ads on the mentioned platforms benevolent, 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 site, deceivers do their best to make the individuals buy something. Impossibly good 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 peculiar 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 swindlers get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough grievances and user feedback regarding the site being fraudulent, they simply vanish. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough individuals are aware about the deceptive activity, the money flow will dry up, leaving fraudsters with no motivation to move on. Reporting the scam to the hosting speeds up the domain takedown.

Why is Vicichic.shop a Scam?

Well, we just talked about the way the hoax site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is deceptive 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

Fraud websites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no reason (and way) to make any online reputation with feedback. Obviously, even benign online shopping sites will lack user feedback shortly after the start, since 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, when you face phishy-looking reviews that have nothing to do with what the site markets, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any unclear or balderdash reviews that may describe any item sold on the site should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on dishonest websites 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 viable even during sales events such as the aforementioned Thanksgiving day. In some cases, fraudulent sites set the prices low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be preposterous, like $30 for a bed or $10 for a branded leather bag. Goods may be sold for cheap, but every sell-off has its logical limits.

3. No customer support.

This is what distinguishes dishonest websites from the genuine ones, even newly established. When a site is about to scam the buyers, 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 most likely have no contact info at all.

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

When they offer a contact email, or even a phone to contact them, 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 inquiry.

As scammers tend to reuse numbers and emails as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they are mentioned on a different website, be sure that this is 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 services and 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: 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 websites may also offer payments in crypto, which feature even less control. While crypto transactions expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different frauds.

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As frauds are unlikely to have any real items, they are not able to create unique images. Thus their option is to steal these images elsewhere. When rascals offer the same items on different websites, you can find such images 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

Rascals do not copy only pics. As rascals may use the same topic again and again, they put the same site design under the new web-address, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, image search advice from the previous paragraph may lead you to the identical copy of the original site. It allows you to unveil such scams particularly easy, but scoundrels who create them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Is your PC infected?

There are situations when Vicichic.shop site, along with similar scam pages, are promoted by malware. Adware and browser hijackers are malware types that aim specifically at such purposes. If you see excessive amounts of ads in your browser, see your search inquiries redirected into a different 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

We have also been using this software on our systems ever since, and it has always been successful in detecting viruses. It has blocked the most common adware as shown from our tests with the software, and we assure you that it can remove malware as well as other malware hiding on your computer.

To use Gridinsoft for remove malicious threats, follow the steps below:

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Frequently Asked Questions about the Vicichic.shop Scam