Wholetotal.com is a deceptive website that offers to buy items 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 story to make you think about this site as a legitimate one. After ordering from this site, you will most likely get nothing at all, or, at best, inferior or counterfeit items.
In this article, I will show the concerning indicators regarding the Wholetotal.com store, the way this scam operates, and show how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in upcoming times.
Wholetotal.com Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Wholetotal.com may initially seem 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, excessively low prices, lack of customer support and customer testimonials – this site completes the fraud bingo right away.
| Website | Wholetotal.com |
| Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. United States, San Francisco |
| IP Address | 104.18.11.62 |
| Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
| Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
Wholetotal.com Scam
By purchasing items on websites like Wholetotal.com, it is questionable that you will acquire the items you’ve ordered. More frequently, it results in one of 3 cases characteristic 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 indicate 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 pages that offer baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.
Wrong item. To make the deal look more legitimate, but spend even less money on the actual item, scammers may ship a random item they have on hand instead of what you’ve ordered. A worn t-shirt instead of a branded one, a dirty aluminum platter instead of a set of dishes – scammers may turn rather inventive in that case.
Absolutely nothing. This is the most typical case when ordering goods from sites like Wholetotal.com. Scams take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply vanish. As scams are not going to exist for a long time, frauds do not bother themselves with creating even a slight semblance of legitimacy.
Wholetotal.com scam – How does it work?
As any fraud, Wholetotal.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. Frauds post massive amounts of advertisements on social media, particularly preferring Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Paid ads say 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 benign, they do not doubt anything at this point. Ads become particularly persuasive 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 customers are on the website, swindlers do their best to make the individuals buy something. Impossibly good deals, additional discounts, free delivery, bright and blinking “Order Now” buttons that are just everywhere – they use every single method possible. And this works out – uninformed individuals 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, deceivers 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 tricksters get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough grievances and user reports about the site being fraudulent, they just disappear. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough individuals know about the deceptive activity, the profits will dry up, leaving crooks with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting speeds up the domain takedown.
Why is Wholetotal.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 untrustworthy 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 websites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no reason (and way) to make any reputation with reviews. Obviously, even legit online shopping sites will lack customer reviews when they have just started, as there were not many clients 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, when you face unrealistic reviews that have nothing to do with what the site offers for sale, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any obscure or absurdity 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. 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 feasible even during sales events such as the aforementioned Black Friday. In some cases, deceptive sites have the initial price low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be ludicrous, 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 sensible limits.
3. No customer support.
This is what distinguishes dishonest sites from the genuine ones, even newly established. When a site is about to rip off the customers, there’s no need to waste time on answering their questions. Check out the “About us” or “Info” page – the site will have no support contacts whatsoever.
Typically for fraudulent sites, the “About us” column is completely empty
When they offer a contact email, or even a phone to reach them out, there is a great chance that these emails and numbers will be dead silent to your request. This, or you will receive some generic text regardless of your question.
As scoundrels often reuse phone numbers and email addresses as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a completely different website, be sure you’re 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 complementary, as there are plenty of genuine shops and services using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. Each of the latter has the same feature 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, there’s no way to get the money back.
Some sites may also offer payments in crypto, which is even less controllable than aforementioned payment methods. While cryptocurrency payments expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different frauds.
5. Items’ images are sourced from another page
As fraudsters are unlikely to have any goods on hand, they cannot create unique images. Thus their only option is simply to steal these images from other sites. When frauds offer identical goods on different websites, you can find same pics on similarly-looking scam pages. By reverse image searching 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
Frauds do not stop on stealing pics. As frauds may use the same topic repeatedly, they reuse the same web design under the new web-address, and voila – a new scam site is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, image search on Google advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the copy of the original site. It allows you to uncover such frauds pretty easy, but crooks 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 Wholetotal.com website, 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 ads appearing in your web browser, have your search queries redirected into a different search engine and some random pages open time to time, consider scanning your system with GridinSoft Anti-Malware. This will help you to get rid of annoying promotions and scam sites.
Remove malware with Gridinsoft Anti-Malware
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Frequently Asked Questions about the Wholetotal.com Scam
Wholetotal.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 indicators that point at fraudulent nature of Wholetotal.com shop. To begin with, Wholetotal.com shop recently set up its webpage, which is a typical feature of brief deceptive websites that swiftly disappear. Second, the site lacks contact information such as a phone number, street address, or real-time chat option, making it challenging to tackle problems or queries. Thirdly, it provides fake company details, presenting no authentic information about the enterprise behind the website. Furthermore, this scam entices shoppers with unrealistic discounts and promotions, cutting prices by over 70% or even 90%. Furthermore, Wholetotal.com plagiarizes content and product images from legitimate online stores like Alibaba, Amazon, and Aliexpress, indicating a absence of unique ideas and trustworthiness. Moreover, despite stating to provide trendy and stylish products, the webpage lacks any social media presence or links to online networking platforms. To conclude, real client testimonials is completely absent, with reports of delayed or absent deliveries, inferior customer support, defective or inaccurate products, repayment 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 Wholetotal.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 Wholetotal.com as a fraudulent site and urge them to block future charges from it.
- Promptly change your passwords if you have a Wholetotal.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 Wholetotal.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, Wholetotal.com does not have genuine customer feedback or testimonials. The absence of legitimate customer reviews further indicates its untrustworthiness and potentially fraudulent nature.
