What are Copycat Websites?

Every online and regular newspaper must have run alarming commentaries about these menacing copycat websites. The damage caused by copycat websites drives deep into the core of homes, families and businesses. Over the years, they have victimized unwary individuals to make purchases that are total rip-offs. These sites have been reported to rob vast amounts from retirees, single parents and hardworking part-time students. The poor victims end up losing much of their savings and hard-earned money. There are even high-ranking business and institution personalities who fell for such scams in the effort to earn quick cash or save some in a seemingly budget-saver purchase.

But what really is a copycat website?

What Makes It So Dangerous?

For one, they sell non-existent products or substandard ones. Regardless of whether the orders or purchases arrive, they are definitely not the same ones from the real company consumers thought they were. The problem is, most people who fell for these scams were too busy, not knowledgeable or were hurriedly trying to get a bargain to even notice the obvious.

A copycat website very much looks like the legitimate site. Often, consumers wouldn’t look too closely and be assured it’s real because the logo, the brands and even the same pictures and images are present on the website. The websites could be copies of high end stores and boutiques, or they could be bargain or online stores. To make these bogus sites appear really clean-cut and honest, they’d even have the logos of trusted online payment services, accredited or accepted credit cards and all other assurances we would know of when making transactions over the internet.

Fraudulent people who create these sites are primarily enjoying the weak online policies, say various web safety experts. And so they simply copy and paste logos of popular department stores, payment services and other reliable institutions. Then for a few bucks, they would purchase domain names very similar to the real store’s domain name. That’s about it – and a copycat website is born.

How Does Copycat Website Work?

A classic example of this scam would be purchasing from a famous apparel company. But instead of going to the legit site which is www.legitapparel4u.com, the buyer was led to www.legitapparell4u.com. Notice the mistake – double LL instead of just one. Hence, the copycat website appeared instead of the right one. Once there, of course, the offers were just sumptuous for the budget-saver. So purchases were made via PayPal, credit card or any other online payment services. Customers then might receive a low quality product or in some cases – nothing.

Copycat websites are commonly used by competitors of the legit business for getting customers to their store, even with illegal means.