Buying Online: Telling a Real Shop From a Fake One

Fake shops are no longer crude. They are built from templates in an afternoon, filled with stolen product photographs, given a plausible name, and advertised on social media with a budget. They look better than many genuine small businesses.

The good news is that the checks are quick and the payment rule covers you even when the checks fail.

The rule that matters most

Pay by credit card.

Credit cards carry the strongest protection for goods that never arrive or are not as described. Debit cards offer less, and bank transfers, gift cards and cryptocurrency offer none at all.

If a shop only accepts bank transfer, cryptocurrency or gift cards, that is the answer. No further checking is required — that is not a payment preference, it is the business model.

A payment service like PayPal, used properly, also provides a route to dispute a purchase.

Because of this rule, the checks below are a way to avoid the hassle rather than the only thing standing between you and a loss. Worth knowing, and not worth agonising over.

The two-minute check

Search the shop's name with the word "reviews" or "scam." The fastest and most effective single step. Fake shops are usually reported within weeks of launching.

Look at how old the site is. New sites are not automatically fraudulent, and a shop advertising heavily while being three weeks old is worth caution. A search for the domain name plus "when was registered" will usually tell you.

Find the contact details. A real business has a physical address, a phone number and a company registration. A contact form and nothing else is a signal.

Check the address is real. Paste it into a map. Fake shops list addresses that are car parks, residential houses in other countries, or nothing at all.

Read the returns policy. Fake shops copy these from templates and they frequently contradict themselves, name a different company, or specify a return address in a country the shop never mentioned.

Signals in the listing itself

A discount that does not make sense. Not 30% off — 80% off a well-known product that is never discounted. The unbelievable price is the advertising budget.

Stock photographs used by many sellers. Search the product image itself: right-click and search the image, or use the reverse image search on your phone. If the same photograph appears on dozens of unrelated sites, be careful.

Reviews that are all recent and all five-star, written in similar phrasing, with no mention of anything specific.

Countdown timers and "only two left". Present on many legitimate sites too, and in combination with the other signals, meaningful.

Text that reads slightly oddly — inconsistent currency, mixed spellings, product descriptions that do not match the photographs.

Adverts on social media

Worth treating as a category, because it is where most of these reach people.

An advert is not a recommendation. Platforms sell placement; they do not verify sellers. A well-produced advert means somebody spent money, not that the shop exists.

Fake celebrity endorsements are widespread and increasingly convincing, including fabricated video. See fake voices and faces.

Search the shop's name outside the advert before buying. That single step filters most of them.

Buying on marketplaces

Large marketplaces contain both the platform's own sales and thousands of third-party sellers, and the protections differ.

Check who is actually selling. The listing says "sold by". A well-known marketplace does not mean a well-known seller.

Stay inside the platform. A seller asking you to complete the purchase by email, bank transfer or another app is removing the protection. Every marketplace warns about this because it happens constantly.

Look at the seller's history, not just the product's rating.

Delivery messages

The most common follow-on to any online purchase, and frequently unconnected to it.

A text or email says a parcel needs a small fee, or an address confirmation. The link goes to a convincing copy of a real courier's site.

Never follow a link in a delivery message. Go to the courier's own site and enter the tracking number, or check the order in the shop's own account. See fake emails.

Genuine couriers do not charge fees by text.

If it goes wrong

Contact the card issuer first, not the shop. Ask about a chargeback and do it promptly — there are time limits.

Keep everything: the order confirmation, the listing, the site address, any messages. Fake shops disappear quickly, so screenshots matter.

Report it at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and to the platform if it was advertised there.

Watch for the follow-up. Anyone contacting you afterwards offering to recover your money is a second fraud. See the first two hours after you realise.

The version worth remembering

Pay by credit card, search the name plus "reviews", and never complete a purchase outside the platform you started on.

Three habits, no expertise required, and between them they cover almost everything.

For additional public information on consumer fraud and scam prevention, see Federal Trade Commission.