HN Explorer

Fake Online Storefronts in 2021

9 points by montag ↗ HN
Lately I've come across quite a few online storefronts that appear to be fake. Mostly showing up in Google Shopping results. They are fully-functioning ecommerce sites, with a realistic inventory, a full suite of active social media accounts, but with a distinct tinge of...fraud.

Take this one, for example:

https://homespacedecor.com/

https://twitter.com/homespacedecor

Street view of their address in Houston: https://goo.gl/maps/fakpcpmGyytGRt167

Is it just me, or has this problem recently gotten worse? Are these organized carding scams? Has there been any good investigative reporting about it?

5 comments

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samwillis
Out of interest what is it that makes you believe that site is fake?

From a very quick skim it portentously looks like a fairly standard drop shipping operation to me. (None of their own photography, attempt at lots of seo text, somewhat strange selection of products)

There is an explosion of drop shipping sites at the moment, I think connected to lots of people selling courses on how to “get rich quick” by drop shipping.

mtmail
Even Amazon started without inventory. The website was the Ingram wholesaler catalogue, Amazon displayed 2-3 day shipping and would quickly order the book from the wholesaler within 24h. Only after a year of operation they started to directly pre-buy from publishers (top 100 books). I used to work at a similar company. As long as the sales margins are good and support burden manageable it's a decent business. These days dropshippers outsource shipping, returns.
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stolenmerch
In this case it might be a drop shipper, which is completely legit. I've seen other fake stores, however, that scrape listings from eBay and offer them on their "store". They somehow generate valid USPS tracking numbers yet never send your item. They only take PayPal because PayPal will not accept any disputed charge with a tracking number.
mdrzn
I've seen hundreds, mostly thru instagram ads.

Either they are dropshipping or straight up stealing your payment info for later.