Vintedeu.com is a fraudulent website that offers to purchase women clothing at exceptionally cheap prices. It may appear as a discounter, or as a marketplace for warehouse liquidation items, but it is in fact just a narrative to make you think this site is legitimate. After ordering goods from this site, you will most likely get nothing at all, or, at best, poor-quality or counterfeit items.
In this article, I will show the warning signs regarding the Vintedeu.com site, the way this deception operates, and show how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping deceptions in future.
Vintedeu.com Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Vintedeu.com may initially appear like a genuine discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a quick analysis shows a disturbing amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s deception. Unfair advertising methods, extremely low prices, lack of customer support and customer reviews – this site completes the fraud bingo right away.
| Website | Vintedeu.com |
| Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. United States, San Francisco |
| IP Address | 104.18.24.121 |
| Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
| Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
Vintedeu.com Scam
By purchasing on websites like Vintedeu.com, it is uncertain that you will acquire the items you’ve ordered. More often, 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 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 specifically often case when ordering from pages that offer baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.
Wrong item. To make the trade look legit, but spend even less money on the actual item, scammers may ship a accidental item they have instead of your order. An old t-shirt instead of a brand new one, a dirty aluminum dish instead of a set of dishes – scammers may turn rather inventive in that case.
Absolutely nothing. This is the most typical outcome when ordering from pages like Vintedeu.com. Scams take your money, promise the delivery, and then just disappear. As scam sites are not going to exist for a long time, rascals are not wasting time creating even a faint visibility of legitimacy.
Vintedeu.com scam – How does it work?
As any fraud, Vintedeu.com runs a simple and well-proven scheme of operations. It usually 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 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 regard ads on the mentioned platforms legitimate, they do not suspect anything at this point. Ads become especially 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 website, deceivers do their best to make the consumers buy something. Mind-boggling deals, additional discounts, 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 unusual 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 tricksters, “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 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 are aware about the fraudulent activity, the money flow will dry up, leaving crooks with no motivation to move on. Reporting the scam to the hosting speeds up the domain takedown.
Why is Vintedeu.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
Hoax sites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no purpose (and way) to make any reputation with user reviews. Obviously, even benign shopping sites will lack buyer opinions when they have just started, since there were just a few buyers 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 obscure or gibberish reviews that may describe any item sold on the website should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on fraudulent 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% markdowns are not feasible even during sales events such as the aforementioned Black Friday. In some cases, fraudulent websites have the initial price low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be outrageous, 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 reasonable limits.
3. No customer support.
This is what distinguishes fraudulent websites from the legit ones, even newly established. When a site is about to rip off 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 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 huge possibility that these emails and numbers will be unresponsive to your request. This, or they will answer you with generic text regardless of your question.
As scammers tend to reuse numbers and emails for specifying them as “support”, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a completely different site, be sure you are 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 a lot of trustworthy 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 makes it so attractive to scammers – once you’ve sent the money, there’s no way to get the money back.
Some websites may also offer payments in crypto, 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 frauds most likely don’t have any items on hand, they cannot shoot unique pics. Thus their only option is simply to hijack these images elsewhere. When frauds market identical items on different websites, you can find such pics on similarly-looking fraudulent sites. By searching for the image 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
Scammers do not steal only pics. As frauds may use the same topic repeatedly, they put the same web design under the new URL, and voila – a new scam 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 scams particularly easy, but crooks 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 Vintedeu.com site, together with similar scam pages, are promoted by malware. Adware and browser hijackers are two particular malware types that aim specifically at such purposes. If you notice excessive amounts of ads appearing in your browser, see your search queries going into an unusual search engine and some random pages open time to time, scan your system 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 Vintedeu.com Scam
Vintedeu.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 several signs that point at fraudulent nature of Vintedeu.com shop. First and foremost, Vintedeu.com shop recently established its website, which is a common feature of ephemeral deceptive online platforms that quickly evaporate. Second, the site lacks contact details such as a phone number, physical address, or real-time chat alternative, making it hard to tackle issues or queries. Thirdly, it provides fake company details, giving no real data about the company behind the webpage. Additionally, this fraudulent scheme entices customers with impractical price cuts and promotions, cutting prices by over 70% or even 90%. Furthermore, Vintedeu.com copies content and item pictures from genuine online stores like Alibaba, Amazon, and Aliexpress, showing a lack of originality and credibility. Furthermore, despite asserting to provide trendy and chic items, the platform lacks any online networking presence or links to social media platforms. To conclude, genuine client testimonials is completely absent, with reports of delayed or missing deliveries, inferior customer service, defective or incorrect products, reimbursement difficulties, and unapproved charges 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 Vintedeu.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 Vintedeu.com as a fraudulent site and urge them to block future charges from it.
- Promptly change your passwords if you have a Vintedeu.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 Vintedeu.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, Vintedeu.com does not have genuine customer feedback or testimonials. The absence of legitimate customer reviews further indicates its untrustworthiness and potentially fraudulent nature.
I wish I could give this website zero stars. After making a purchase, I realized it was a complete fraud. No communication, no products, and certainly no refunds. Save yourself the headache and do not trust this shady site.