Shopping online is an amazing modern innovation that makes browsing products a fun experience. You can find exclusive coupons and compare between websites for the best deals, and there’s a seemingly infinite variety of products available. This new technology hasn’t come without risks, however.
One of the most common forms of online fraud experienced by shoppers worldwide is receiving fake products after purchasing an item online. This can be very distressing because the counterfeit products tend to be low quality and are often made of unknown and cheap materials hazardous to your health. Luckily, there are some methods you can use to determine if a product online is authentic.
1. Do the reviews seem real?
A common tactic that sellers will use to make their fake products look more legitimate is to list falsified reviews under their products. This helps make their scam appear more trustworthy to shoppers. By inspecting the details of the reviews, you may be able to determine if the reviews are faked. If the website includes profiles for reviewers, you should look at their other reviews and try to determine if it seems like a real person. You may be able to observe that the reviews listed on a product have identical writing patterns and consistently high ratings, which is also a strong sign that the reviews are being falsely created for online fraud.
2. Does the website have contact information?
Typically, a legitimate online store will have contact information for support and questions. This may include things like a mailing address, phone number, and support email. Websites that sell fake products and engage in online fraud, however, will typically have missing or incorrect information. If they do list the contact information, the email address may have hard to notice typos that make it look like a legitimate address to a well known brand. You should see if the seller lists contact information, and inspect it carefully to determine if it is legitimate.
3. Is the price too good to be true?
One of the most common tactics of fraudulent sellers online is to offer significant discounts that make their fake products much cheaper than the competition. They might try to draw customers in with limited time sales or exclusive coupons, both of which are meant to convey a sense of urgency and encourage you to buy products before you can notice anything strange. Ultimately, the price of knowing you got exactly what you ordered is one worth paying.
4. Is there missing or mismatched product information?
It is possible to identify counterfeit merchandise by spotting the mistakes that scammers make when designing their websites. You should check if they have listed information like the serial number, trademark, patent information, and code. They may be missing certain information or make mistakes while adding it, whereas a legitimate seller will have this information correctly listed. They may also make mistakes in other parts of the website, like in banner ads for sales or exclusive coupons.
5. Is the product or packaging poor quality?
While sellers who engage in online fraud tend to build sophisticated scams and selling tactics like fraudulent sales and exclusive coupons meant to trick you, they don’t follow through with delivering anything but low quality products. Frequently, victims of these scams will find upon delivery that the packaging and fake product inside are obviously counterfeit. Through looking at reviews online and investigating the product pages, you may be able to identify scams before you’re victimized.
6. Is there visible mistakes on the product?
Online scammers frequently make mistakes when designing their fake products, so you might be able to identify scams by inspecting the merchandise images. Is the brand name misspelled? Is the logo incorrectly drawn? There may be very subtle differences such as the font of the text on a logo. You should inspect the product carefully to determine if a website is authentic.
It can be very difficult for shoppers to avoid online fraud, even as they remain wary of suspicious sellers and look for telltale signs of fraud. By knowing several smart tactics to catch scams, however, you can keep yourself safe online and ensure you receive high-quality, legitimate products.
