Villevide.com is a scam website that offers to purchase women clothing at extremely low prices. This site may look like a discounter or a reseller of goods from stock liquidation, but it is actually just a story to make you think about this site as a legitimate one. Upon placing an order on 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 Villevide.com store, the way this deception operates, and show how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping deceptions in future.
Villevide.com Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Villevide.com may initially appear like a genuine discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a quick analysis shows a troubling amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s deception. Questionable advertising methods, unreasonably low prices, absence of customer support and customer feedback – this site accomplishes the fraud bingo right away.
| Website | Villevide.com |
| Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. Canada, Ottawa |
| IP Address | 23.227.38.65 |
| Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
| Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
Villevide.com Scam
By shopping on pages like Villevide.com, it is questionable that you will get the items you’ve ordered. More often, 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 imitation items of popular brands, the quality will be inferior, to say the least. Eventually, the site may indicate about that somewhere deep in the item description or “about us” page, but users rarely check them thoroughly. This is a specifically common case when ordering from sites that sell baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.
Wrong item. To make the purchase look legit, but spend even less money on the actual item, scammers may ship a random item they have on hand instead of your order. An old t-shirt instead of a brand new one, a dirty aluminum plate instead of a set of dishes – scammers may turn quite inventive in that case.
Nothing at all. This is the most common scenario when ordering from pages like Villevide.com. Fraudsters take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply vanish. As scam sites are not going to exist for a long time, frauds are not wasting time creating even a vague visibility of legitimacy.
Villevide.com scam – How does it work?
As any fraud, Villevide.com follows a simple and well-proven modus operandi. It commonly 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 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 benign, they do not doubt 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, swindlers 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 customers 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, 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 scammers, “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 complaints and user reports about the site being a scam, they simply vanish. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough customers are aware about the fraudulent 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 Villevide.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, 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
Hoax sites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no reason (and way) to make any reputation with user reviews. Obviously, even legit online shopping sites will lack customer reviews 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, once you face unrealistic reviews that have no relation to what the site offers for sale, 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 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% reductions are not trustworthy even during sales events such as the aforementioned Christmas. In some cases, dishonest sites set the prices low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be absurd, 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 rational limits.
3. No customer support.
This is what distinguishes scam websites from the legit ones, even newly established. When a site is about to defraud the clients, there’s no need to waste time on answering their questions. Check out the “About us” or “Info” page – the site will likely have no contact info at all.
Typically for fraudulent sites, 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 numbers and emails will be dead silent to your request. This, or they will answer you with generic text regardless of your inquiry.
As frauds tend to reuse numbers and emails as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a different site, 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 complementary, as there are a lot of trustworthy 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: these methods do not suppose any refund options. 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 offer payments in cryptocurrency, which is even less controllable than aforementioned payment methods. While crypto payments expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different fraudsters.
5. Items’ images are sourced from another page
As scammers are unlikely to have any goods on hand, they are not able to shoot unique images. Thus their only option is to hijack these images from other sites. When rascals sell identical goods on different websites, you can find same pics on similarly-designed scam sites. 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 frauds may scam people on the same topic again and again, they use the same web design under the new URL, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, reverse image search advice from the previous paragraph may lead you to the copy of the original site. It makes uncovering such frauds pretty easy, but scoundrels who stand behind them never aim at cautious users.
Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design
Is your PC infected?
There are situations when Villevide.com website, along with similar scam sites, are promoted by malware. Adware and browser hijackers are malware types known for such behavior. If you notice excessive amounts of ads appearing in your web browser, see your search inquiries going into an unusual search engine and some random pages open time to time, consider scanning your PC with GridinSoft Anti-Malware. This will help you to get rid of annoying promotions and scam sites.
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Frequently Asked Questions about the Villevide.com Scam
Villevide.com 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 a couple of signs that point at fraudulent nature of Villevide.com shop. To begin with, Villevide.com shop recently created its online platform, which is a common characteristic of brief deceptive websites that quickly disappear. Second, the webpage lacks ways to reach out such as a telephone number, physical address, or real-time chat alternative, making it difficult to address problems or questions. Thirdly, it shows counterfeit company details, giving no authentic details about the company behind the website. Moreover, this fraudulent scheme entices buyers with exaggerated rebates and sales offers, slashing prices by over 70% or even 90%. Furthermore, Villevide.com copies content and product images from legitimate e-commerce platforms like Alibaba, Amazon, and Aliexpress, showing a lack of originality and trustworthiness. Furthermore, despite stating to provide trendy and chic products, the platform lacks any social media presence or links to social media platforms. To conclude, authentic client testimonials is completely absent, with reports of delayed or absent deliveries, poor customer support, faulty or inaccurate products, reimbursement difficulties, and illegitimate transactions 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 Villevide.com:
- 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 Villevide.com as a fraudulent site and urge them to block future charges from it.
- Promptly change your passwords if you have a Villevide.com 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 Villevide.com 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, Villevide.com does not have genuine customer feedback or testimonials. The absence of legitimate customer reviews further indicates its untrustworthiness and potentially fraudulent nature.
