Vogue-melbourne.com Scam Store: A Fake Vogue Website

Vogue-melbourne.com is a scam website that offers to buy various clothing and footwear from Vogue at extremely low prices. It may appear as a discounter, or as a marketplace for warehouse liquidation items, but it is in fact just a ploy to make you think this site is legitimate. After ordering goods from this site, you will likely get nothing at all, or, at best, inferior or counterfeit items.

In this article, I will highlight the concerning indicators regarding the Vogue-melbourne.com shop, the way this fraud operates, and teach how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in future.

Vogue-melbourne.com Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Vogue-melbourne.com may initially look like a authentic discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a short analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s fraudulence. Unfair advertising methods, extremely low prices, lack of user support and customer reviews – this site completes the scam bingo right away.

Vogue-melbourne.com Scam

By purchasing on sites like Vogue-melbourne.com, it is unlikely that you will obtain the goods you’ve ordered. More frequently, it results in one of 3 instances typical 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 quality will be inferior, to say the least. Eventually, the site may inform 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 offer baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the trade look real, but spend even less money on the actual item, frauds may send a incidental item they have instead of what you’ve ordered. An old t-shirt instead of a branded one, a dented aluminum platter instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn rather inventive in that case.

Nothing at all. This is the most common case when ordering from sites like Vogue-melbourne.com. Frauds take your money, promise the delivery, and then merely vanish. As scams do not aim to exist for a long time, frauds are not wasting time creating even a remote semblance of legitimacy.

Vogue-melbourne.com scam – How does it work?

As any scam, Vogue-melbourne.com follows 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 advertisements 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 consider 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 disguise themselves as resellers of the liquidated stock of bankrupt retail companies.

Step 2 – Take the Money. Once individuals are on the site, fraudsters do their best to make the consumers buy something. Mind-boggling 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 users stick to the offers and proceed to paying for the order.

Payments are done in a curious 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 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 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 know about the fraudulent activity, the money flow will dry up, leaving fraudsters with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the hosting speeds up the domain takedown.

Why is Vogue-melbourne.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, scammers 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 websites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no reason (and way) to make any reputation with reviews. Obviously, even legit shopping sites will lack customer reviews shortly after the start, since there were just a few customers 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 phishy-looking reviews that have no relation to what the site offers for sale, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any blurred or absurdity reviews that may describe any item sold on the website should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on dishonest 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 Black Friday. In some cases, deceptive websites 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 at a low price, but every discount has its rational limits.

3. No customer support.

This is what distinguishes scam websites from the genuine 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 (if it is present at all) – the page will likely have no contact info whatsoever.

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

When they offer an email, or even a phone to contact them, there is a huge chance that these numbers and emails will be dead silent to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your inquiry.

As scammers often reuse numbers and emails as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they appear 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 services and shops using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. Each of the latter has the same feature I’ve already mentioned above: they do not suppose any refunds. And this is what attracts scammers – once you paid for the order, there’s no way to get the money back.

Some sites may also ask for payments in cryptocurrency, which is even less controllable than aforementioned payment methods. While crypto transactions expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different scams.

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As rascals most likely don’t have any items, they are not able to create unique pictures. Thus their only option is simply to hijack these images elsewhere. When rascals offer identical goods on different sites, you can find such 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

Frauds do not stop on stealing pics. As rascals may parasite on the same topic repeatedly, they reuse the same site 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 from the previous paragraph may lead you to the copy of the original site. It makes uncovering such scams particularly easy, but scoundrels who run them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the Vogue-melbourne.com Scam