'Tis the Season for SCAMS!

A recent project that DarkTower worked on was related to fraudulent marketplaces offering too-good-to-be-true deals on electronics.  DarkTower's CEO Robin Pugh took those lessons and applied them to a recent online shopping experience ... I asked her to write it up for our blog:

As I was browsing some of my favorite Instagrammers this morning, one of them posted about a great coffee system that was on price rollback at Walmart.com for $99 – nearly half off the list price of $179.99.  As a coffee lover AND a bargain lover, I was immediately interested and began searching for more information.  Since I wasn’t familiar with how this particular coffee system worked, I typed the model name in my google search bar, intending to find some YouTube videos on how it worked, but since I left my search term fairly broad, some interesting sites popped up in my search results. 

https://julishopgame.com/index.php/ninja-coffee-bar-system-cf097.html

RED FLAG #1: Prices that are TOO good

WOW!  An even BIGGER BARGAIN… more than $10 less than the Walmart.com price?!  But on a site I’ve never heard of “Juli Shop,” so I began to take a closer look at the site, since we all know a) it’s hard to beat a Walmart price and b) if it’s too good to be true….  Well, you can finish that sentence.  (Other kitchen appliances on the site also had crazy discounts.  The "DeLonghi Dedica EC680 15 Bar Stainless Steel Slim Espresso" machine is only $160.99 at Juli Shop, but $299.99 at Bed Bath & Beyond and BestBuy, and $241 at WalMart.com.)

RED FLAG  #2:  Same Day delivery

Among the things I notice about Juli Shop, in the list of things they promote about their site is “Same Day Delivery.”  Really?  Same Day? So where are they located that they can promise same day delivery?

https://julishopgame.com/index.php/contacts/

They purport to be in Citronelle, Alabama, with a local phone number; so I looked up the address on Google Maps and found that it’s a lovely 2 BR/2 BA brick ranch home that’s not currently for sale. The phone number – brace yourself – is disconnected. But they’ll definitely get me my Ninja Coffee Bar System today.

RED FLAG #3: Spelling Errors
I also notice in the menu bar that they want to tell me “Abouts Us”. Other sections of the menu are labeled "INFOMATION" and "CUSTORMER." Well, spelling errors are often a hallmark of scam sites and phishing emails, so I click to learn more “Abouts” them.

https://julishopgame.com/index.php/about-us/

RED FLAG #4:  Information clearly copied from another site

Oddly, their About Us page has no mention of Juli Shop.  It is 100% about a fashion apparel company called Madison Island, and Juli Shop has no apparel merchandise at all.  Let’s check out Madison Island to see if it’s an affiliate, or maybe a parent company.

A quick search for Madison Island reveals that it is a fictitious demo store used to test Magento, a popular shopping cart processing plug-in, which Juli Shop uses to process its credit card transactions. By the way, Magento is targeted by one of the most prevalent malware families called Magecart.  Magecart is specifically to steal credit card credentials.  So let’s think of the possibilities here:  a scam site that takes your money and never delivers the promised item AND steals your credit card information at the same time.  That’s quite a criminal enterprise!

RED FLAG #5:  Sanity check

At this point, all signs point toward a scam site, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to be paying $10 more for my Ninja Coffee Bar; but before I move on, I check out scamadviser.com.

https://www.scamadviser.com/check-website/julishopgame.com/index.php/about-us

They give Juli Shop a 66% “TrustScore”, which puts it squarely in the “green” zone; but after reading the negative/positive comments, I’m not sure I agree.  First, the website was established 21 days ago.  The server is used by multiple websites, which isn’t uncommon for a small site, but they are offering items and services that are not typical of a small site.  Additionally, and quite concerning, the set up involves both the US and Vietnam.  A multi-country set-up is not common for a small site, and somehow Vietnam doesn’t jive with Citronelle, Alabama.

Further review of the scamadviser.com data shows conflicting information around the site’s infrastructure, but also shows that there are no comments or reviews on typical review sites like Sitejabber and Trustpilot. The absence of this information is quite telling.

Scamadviser may give this site a 66% trust rating.  I’m giving it a 100% SCAM rating.

As the Christmas cyber shopping season is upon us, before you shop at a new online store, take the time to thoroughly review the site.  As demonstrated above, a few key checks and paying attention to red flags can quickly reveal whether you should be entering your credit card information there, and whether it may leave Santa with an empty sack on Christmas eve.