Wavewatchat.com Scam Store: What You Need To Know

Wavewatchat.com is a fraudulent website that offers to purchase watch at unusually discounted prices. This site may look like a discounter or a reseller of goods from stock liquidation, but it is in fact just a narrative to make you think this site is legitimate. After ordering from this site, you will likely get nothing at all, or, at best, inferior or counterfeit items.

In this article, I will demonstrate the concerning indicators regarding the Wavewatchat.com shop, the way this scam operates, and teach how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in upcoming times.

Wavewatchat.com Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Wavewatchat.com may initially seem like a legit discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a quick analysis shows a disturbing amount of red flags that say clearly about this site’s dishonesty. Unfair advertising methods, unreasonably low prices, lack of user support and customer testimonials – this site fulfills the scam bingo right away.

Wavewatchat.com Scam

By shopping on sites like Wavewatchat.com, it is unlikely that you will acquire the goods you’ve ordered. More typically, it results in one of 3 scenarios common 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 characteristic 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 sites that promote baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the deal look legit, but spend even less money on the delivered item, scammers may ship a accidental item they have instead of your order. An old t-shirt instead of a new one, a dirty aluminum platter instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn rather inventive in that case.

Nothing at all. This is the most usual outcome when ordering from websites like Wavewatchat.com. Scams take your money, promise the delivery, and then merely vanish. As scams do not aim to exist for a long time, rascals do not bother themselves with creating even a remote sight of legitimacy.

Wavewatchat.com scam – How does it work?

As any scam, Wavewatchat.com 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. Scammers post huge amounts of marketing on social media, 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 regard ads on the mentioned platforms benevolent, they do not doubt 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 consumers are on the site, scammers do their best to make the customers buy something. Impossibly good 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 customers 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 swindlers, “no refunds” is a part of their policy which you agree on upon registration.

Step 3 – Vanish. Once scoundrels get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough complaints 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 customers know about the dishonest 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 Wavewatchat.com a Scam?

Well, we just talked about the way the scam site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is fraudulent without risking your money. Fortunately, rascals 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 reputation with feedback. Obviously, even legit online shopping sites will lack client testimonials when they have just started, since there were not many consumers 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 markets, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any blurred or absurdity reviews that may describe any item sold on the site should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on scam websites 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% discounts are not viable even during sales events such as the aforementioned Thanksgiving day. In some cases, fraudulent 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 for cheap, but every sell-off has its reasonable limits.

3. No customer support.

That factor distinguishes fraudulent sites from the genuine ones, even newly established. When a site is about to defraud the customers, 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 support contacts at all.

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

When they offer an email, or even a phone number to reach them out, there is a great possibility that these contacts will be unresponsive to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your question.

As frauds 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 websites 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 whole lot of trustworthy services using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or payment systems like them. 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 offer payments in cryptocurrency, which feature even less control. While crypto transactions 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 items, they are not able to shoot unique pics. Thus their only option is simply to hijack these images elsewhere. When fraudsters market identical goods on different pages, you can find same images on similarly-designed scam 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 stop on stealing pics. As frauds may scam people on the same topic again and again, they reuse 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 page you’ve started on. It makes uncovering such frauds particularly easy, but scammers who run them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Is your PC infected?

There are situations when Wavewatchat.com website, along with similar scam pages, are promoted by malware. Adware and browser hijackers are two particular malware types known for such behavior. If you notice excessive amounts of ads in your browser, see your search queries going in an unusual search engine and some random pages open time to time, consider scanning your device 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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3.Follow the installation setup wizard's instructions diligently.

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Be patient, as the scan duration depends on the number of files and your computer's hardware capabilities. Use this time to relax or attend to other tasks.

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Frequently Asked Questions about the Wavewatchat.com Scam