Yearsts.com is a deceptive website that offers to buy items 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 narrative 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 highlight the warning signs regarding the Yearsts.com shop, the way this fraud operates, and explain how to detect similar frauds. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in future.
Yearsts.com Site – Scam Overview
As I said, Yearsts.com may initially appear like a authentic discounter or the seller of stock liquidation items. But a short analysis shows a concerning amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s deception. Unfair advertising methods, excessively low prices, lack of customer support and customer feedback – this site completes the fraud bingo right away.
Website | Yearsts.com |
Hosting | AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc. United States, San Francisco |
IP Address | 104.21.1.203 |
Threat Type | Scam/Fraud |
Scam Type | Fraudulent/Scam online shop |
By shopping on sites like Yearsts.com, it is questionable that you will receive the goods you’ve ordered. More often, it results in one of 3 situations 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 attribute 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 pages that sell baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.
Wrong item. To make the transaction look more legitimate, but spend even less money on the actual item, cheats may ship a random item they have instead of your order. An old t-shirt instead of a brand new one, a dented aluminum dish instead of a set of dishes – frauds may turn quite inventive in that case.
Absolutely nothing. This is the most typical scenario when ordering from sites like Yearsts.com. Scams take your money, promise the delivery, and then just disappear. As scams do not aim to exist for a long time, fraudsters are not wasting effort creating even a remote visibility of legitimacy.
Yearsts.com scam – How does it work?
As any fraud, Yearsts.com follows 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. Frauds post massive amounts of advertisements 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.
As users consider ads on the mentioned platforms genuine, 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 website, scammers do their best to make the individuals 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 users 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, 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 deceivers, “no refunds” is a part of their policy which you agree on upon registration.
Step 3 – Vanish. Once rascals get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough grievances and user feedback about the site being a scam, they just vanish. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough customers are aware about the dishonest activity, the profits will dry up, leaving swindlers with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.
Why is Yearsts.com a Scam?
Well, we just talked about the way the hoax site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is deceptive 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
Fraud sites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no reason (and way) to make any reputation with reviews. Obviously, even benign online shopping sites will lack customer reviews when they have just started, as there were just a few customers yet. For that reason, this sign is not stand-alone and must be confirmed with other signs or indicators.
However, when you face unrealistic reviews that have nothing to do with what the site sells, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any obscure or nonsense reviews that may describe any item sold on the website should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on deceptive 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% reductions are not viable even during sales events such as the aforementioned Christmas. In some cases, dishonest 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 for cheap, but every sell-off has its sensible limits.
3. No customer support.
That factor distinguishes scam websites from the benign ones, even newly established. When a site is about to rip off the customers, there’s no need to bother about answering their questions. Check out the “About us” or “Info” page – the site will likely have no support contacts whatsoever.
When they offer a contact email, or even a phone to contact them, 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 scammers tend to reuse phone numbers and email addresses for specifying them as “support”, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a totally different site, be sure you are facing a blatant scam.
4. Payments via payment systems that does not support refunds
This scam indicator is complementary, as there are a lot of benign services 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 makes it so attractive to scammers – once you’ve sent the money, 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 scams.
5. Items’ images are sourced from another page
As frauds most likely don’t have any items on hand, they cannot shoot unique pictures. Thus their option is to hijack these images elsewhere. When scams offer identical items on different pages, you can find such pics on similarly-looking scam pages. By searching for the image on Google, you can prove the uniqueness of an image.
6. Design repeats the one of a different page
This is the continuation of the stolen images I’ve just described. As rascals may scam people on the same topic again and again, they put the same site design under the new web-address, and voila – a new scam site is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, image search advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the copy of the original site. It makes uncovering such frauds pretty easy, but criminals who run them never aim at cautious users.
Is your PC infected?
There are situations when Yearsts.com website, together with similar scam sites, are promoted by malware. Adware and browser hijackers are two particular malware types known for such behavior. If you see excessive amounts of ads appearing in your web browser, have your search queries redirected into a different search engine and some random pages open time to time, scan your PC 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 Yearsts.com Scam
Yearsts.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 Yearsts.com shop. Firstly, Yearsts.com shop recently set up its website, which is a frequent trait of brief scam sites that rapidly vanish. Secondly, the site lacks contact details such as a telephone number, physical address, or real-time chat alternative, making it difficult to tackle issues or questions. Thirdly, it shows counterfeit business information, offering no genuine data about the enterprise behind the website. Moreover, this deceptive tactic entices buyers with impractical rebates and promotions, slashing prices by over 70% or even 90%. Moreover, Yearsts.com plagiarizes content and product images from authentic e-commerce platforms like Alibaba, Amazon, and Aliexpress, demonstrating a shortage of innovation and credibility. Moreover, despite claiming to offer trendy and chic products, the platform lacks any social media presence or links to social media platforms. To conclude, real customer feedback is completely absent, with reports of delayed or absent deliveries, poor client assistance, defective or inaccurate products, refund difficulties, and unauthorized 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 Yearsts.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 Yearsts.com as a fraudulent site and urge them to block future charges from it.
- Promptly change your passwords if you have a Yearsts.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 Yearsts.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, Yearsts.com does not have genuine customer feedback or testimonials. The absence of legitimate customer reviews further indicates its untrustworthiness and potentially fraudulent nature.