How to protect yourself from fake shops on the Internet
The online trade continues to grow steadily for years, and has long stopped at national borders.
This way you can conveniently shop goods from all over the world from home and have them delivered to your doorstep. Only what happens if the goods never arrive, and you get instead an unpleasant letter from customs, because goods must be post taxed, or was confiscated for other reasons?
Or by the supposedly trusted dealer will never ship goods. Then the anger is great, and the chances to come to his right rather small. In this article we clarify which features you should look out for online shops.
How to protect yourself from fake shops on the Internet
The online trade continues to grow steadily for years, and has long stopped at national borders.
This way you can conveniently shop goods from all over the world from home and have them delivered to your doorstep. Only what happens if the goods never arrive, and you get instead an unpleasant letter from customs, because goods must be post taxed, or was confiscated for other reasons?
Or by the supposedly trusted dealer will never ship goods. Then the anger is great, and the chances to come to his right rather small. In this article we clarify which features you should look out for online shops.
1. Pay attention to security features of known shops
1. Pay attention to security features of known shops
If you are looking for a specific product, either go directly to the address bar of your browser and enter the URL (which is the safest way), or you can search for the best price through one of the popular search engines.
In general, fake shops have a rather poor search engine ranking, so you have to go down quite a bit in the results list to get straight to those sites. However, there are countless affiliate sites that attract users with product reviews.
The one then clicks on it is quite understandable, if you get besides the best price also a more or less detailed product test included. Unfortunately, it is often the case that this is the first step into the unknown. For more and more often, the operators of such sites do not even sit in the EU, but camouflage themselves with the local language.
The product tests you find there are very often stolen by really trusted portals to fake seriousness. And the links with which you come to the product then point to a well-known online shop, which was again faked.
Sometimes it’s just little things that are different from the original URL. So it could be e.g. Also called https://amason.de.
Everything seems right at first glance. Because you have made an SSL certificate here, and exchanged only a single letter. This is not noticeable when surfing swiftly.
As you can see, the devil is sometimes really in the details.
It’s best to either enter the URL directly from the address bar of your browser, or set it as a bookmark.
If you are looking for a specific product, either go directly to the address bar of your browser and enter the URL (which is the safest way), or you can search for the best price through one of the popular search engines.
In general, fake shops have a rather poor search engine ranking, so you have to go down quite a bit in the results list to get straight to those sites. However, there are countless affiliate sites that attract users with product reviews.
The one then clicks on it is quite understandable, if you get besides the best price also a more or less detailed product test included. Unfortunately, it is often the case that this is the first step into the unknown. For more and more often, the operators of such sites do not even sit in the EU, but camouflage themselves with the local language.
The product tests you find there are very often stolen by really trusted portals to fake seriousness. And the links with which you come to the product then point to a well-known online shop, which was again faked.
Sometimes it’s just little things that are different from the original URL. So it could be e.g. Also called https://amason.de.
Everything seems right at first glance. Because you have made an SSL certificate here, and exchanged only a single letter. This is not noticeable when surfing swiftly.
As you can see, the devil is sometimes really in the details.
It’s best to either enter the URL directly from the address bar of your browser, or set it as a bookmark.
2. Security features at unknown shops
2. Security features at unknown shops
Well buys you can not find everything you’re looking for at the major online retailers, but also meets a rather unknown shop.
And that’s basically not as negative, but you should take a closer look, instead of clicking too fast on “buy”.
Trustworthy seal of quality
(click to enlarge)
Note:
Especially with shops that are located outside the EU, you should study the terms exactly. Partly, these dealers try to pass on the import sales tax to the end customer, which is the reason why the goods are so cheap.
Also plagiarized brands are often offered here, which of course pushes the price properly again.
The customs has every year to destroy tons of counterfeit products that come into the country. So if the price of a product in Germany is e.g. 1.000 EURO, and you get it at an online retailer for 500 EURO, then there is something wrong!
Well buys you can not find everything you’re looking for at the major online retailers, but also meets a rather unknown shop.
And that’s basically not as negative, but you should take a closer look, instead of clicking too fast on “buy”.
Trustworthy seal of quality
Note:
Especially with shops that are located outside the EU, you should study the terms exactly. Partly, these dealers try to pass on the import sales tax to the end customer, which is the reason why the goods are so cheap.
Also plagiarized brands are often offered here, which of course pushes the price properly again.
The customs has every year to destroy tons of counterfeit products that come into the country. So if the price of a product in Germany is e.g. 1.000 EURO, and you get it at an online retailer for 500 EURO, then there is something wrong!
3. Payment and delivery
3. Payment and delivery
If everything is ok with the online shop, the point of payment and the delivery comes.
The terms of payment are (at least for shops in Germany) so that at least 2 different payment methods must be offered. If this is not the case, or if only payment methods are offered that are rather uncommon in Germany (for example, unknown payment service providers), one should also be suspicious.
The same applies to delivery services that do not offer shipment tracking. This is now at a e.g. USB cable certainly not necessarily synonymous, since these are sent as a correspondence, but very well for parcels that make sense from a certain value of goods, of course, purely purely for insurance reasons.
Conclusion:
Just be suspicious, and do not run after every offer, because the price seems unbeatable. Especially if an offer sounds too good to be true, it is often not. Take your time and examine the offers carefully.
Because nobody has anything to give away, but there are good offers where everything is alright.
If everything is ok with the online shop, the point of payment and the delivery comes.
The terms of payment are (at least for shops in Germany) so that at least 2 different payment methods must be offered. If this is not the case, or if only payment methods are offered that are rather uncommon in Germany (for example, unknown payment service providers), one should also be suspicious.
The same applies to delivery services that do not offer shipment tracking. This is now at a e.g. USB cable certainly not necessarily synonymous, since these are sent as a correspondence, but very well for parcels that make sense from a certain value of goods, of course, purely purely for insurance reasons.
Conclusion:
Just be suspicious, and do not run after every offer, because the price seems unbeatable. Especially if an offer sounds too good to be true, it is often not. Take your time and examine the offers carefully.
Because nobody has anything to give away, but there are good offers where everything is alright.
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