Fake shop checklist: 10 signals that give a scam store away

1. Prices 40-70% below every other seller for a scarce or in-demand product. Fraud pricing is designed to override doubt.
2. Missing or fake imprint / legal notice. In the EU an operator address is mandatory. A generic Gmail contact is not an imprint.
3. Domain registered less than 90 days ago. Legitimate shops have history: check WHOIS creation date.
4. Suspicious TLD or spelling. -outlet, -shop-2026, .top, .icu, .vip are heavily abused. A well-known brand on a strange TLD is almost always fake.
5. Payment options limited to card or crypto. No PayPal Buyer Protection, no Klarna, no invoice: because those methods claw back on chargeback.
6. Stolen product photos. Reverse-image-search a hero image (Google Lens, TinEye). If it comes up on Alibaba, Amazon and a stock library, the shop resells nothing.
7. Copy-pasted terms & conditions with another shop's name still in the text. Search a random sentence in quotes.
8. Missing or too-perfect reviews. Trustpilot page with dozens of 5-star reviews all posted in the last week and no negatives is bot-driven.
9. Contact-form-only support with no phone number and a burner support email. Real retailers publish direct contact.
10. Broken checkout UX: spelling errors on the payment step, price in the wrong currency, or a redirect to an unrelated payment domain. Kits are built quickly and leak inconsistencies at the last mile.

• The order confirmation email in full (raw source, not screenshot).
• The card / PayPal transaction ID and merchant string as it appears on your statement.
• A full-page screenshot of the checkout with URL bar visible.
• Any tracking-number email: the sending domain is often the smoking gun.

Then file a chargeback with your card issuer within 60 days. The evidence above shortens the process from weeks to days.

File in parallel: each recipient has a different lever:

• Fraudpol: opens a takedown case with the hosting provider and, if unresponsive, the registrar. See the scam website reporting page.
• Consumer protection agencies: FTC (US), Trading Standards (UK), econsumer.gov for cross-border cases, or the consumer body in your country. They add the shop to consumer-facing warning lists.
• Card scheme fraud reporting: Visa, Mastercard and Amex each accept merchant-fraud reports and can revoke acquiring.
• The abused brand: if the shop clones a real manufacturer, their trademark team will pursue a UDRP against the domain.