Online shopping: 10 big proofs of fraud you should look for

Online shopping has its own advantages and disadvantages. While the convenience of shopping from wherever you are as well as time and effort are some of the pros, it’s also very important to be sure of where we are shopping and what we are clicking on. The popularity of online shopping has also made it one of the favourite tool of cyber criminals to dupe buyers. Fraudsters often create fake versions of popular e-commerce websites to lure shoppers and steal money from them. Many a times, ads of such websites appear on some social media websites/apps. And these websites are just one of the ways to fleece people, there are several other too. Walmart-owned Flipkart has shared some of the tips for buyers to recognise fake shopping websites and other scams. Take a look...

Picture courtesy: Flipkart

A fake website will have unusual URLs with letters like XYZ. At times, the address bar of the browser also shows these URLs as not secure or unsafe

Picture courtesy: Flipkart

These fake websites offer discounts of up to 90% or more on goods. As appealing as they may sound, these offers are completely fake and not to mention illegal too.

Picture courtesy: Flipkart

Fraudsters tend to create an extra hype about the offers given on these fake websites with many exclamation points. This gets a user excited who may tend to believe that the offer is true. But they should not.

Picture courtesy: Flipkart

Samsung Galaxy S10+ at Rs 2,499??? These fake website try to lure customers with offers that go against all ethics and sound difficult to believe.

Picture courtesy: Flipkart

The scamsters will post pictures of Flipkart or Amazon offline stores that are giving huge discounts. One should never fall for them as it goes against the very idea of online shopping.

Picture courtesy: Flipkart

These fake websites will make you believe the fraud discounts are real by saying that the offer is available during annual sales like Flipkart Big Billion Days sale. However, do not believe them and always check these offers from reliable sources before proceeding.

Picture courtesy: Flipkart

If you happen to click on the offer that these fake websites give, it will take you to website that are not related to shopping. They will have different name and a different URL altogether like mobilesale.info

Picture courtesy: Flipkart

Another sign of a fake website that you can look for is: Shopping cart not being clickable. Usually the Shopping cart on these webpages is not clickable and are likely already pre-loaded with product(s).

You will not be asked to login to your account to make purchase from these websites. They will automatically lead you to payment pages in most cases.

Unlike an original website which has multiple clickable links on their page, these fake websites will not have all the links active. Only a few will be active. In many cases, even the hamburger menu is not active.