Website Name
shopbia.in
Website Type
Online Electronics Store
Is Shopbia Fake or Real?
Fake
Why Is Shopbia Fake?
Shopbia is a website that claims to be selling electronic gadgets such as smartwatches, wireless earbuds, smartphones, headphones, trimmers, hair straighteners and more at unbelievable prices. In fact, the prices are roughly 70% lower than the prices on competing sites such as Amazon. ‘Too good to be true’ prices are usually the most obvious sign of a scam.
A domain name lookup of the website shows that it was registered on 1st January 2021 in Maharashtra, India. The registrant’s other details such as name and contact details have not been provided. This means that the website is operated anonymously.
Considering that Shopbia is barely 20 days old, it is even more suspicious for them to be offering huge discounts.
The content on the website is not original. I found that there are at least 9 other websites using the same content, most of which have been determined to be scams. The list of websites is given at the end of the article.
Shopbia does not seem to have any social media presence. The contact details provided on the website include an address, phone number and email ID. The contact detail seem to be fake for the following reasons:
- The domain name has been registered in Maharashtra, but the address given is of Rajasthan. The address does not include any shop/office number and is likely to be fake.
- Both the phone numbers given on the website have been marked as scams in TrueCaller.
- The email ID was found to be inactive when tested.
Another interesting point to note is that one of the numbers is named as ‘Mart Bia Fraud’ on TrueCaller. I discovered a site called Martbia (martbia.in) that is uncannily similar to Shopbia. Both the websites have similar items and pricing. The contact details given by Martbia are exactly the same as Shopbia. Therefore, it is extremely clear that Shopbia is a second scam operated by the same scammers behind Martbia.
While searching for reviews of Shopbia, I once again ran into the fake customer support scam that is run by sites like BestShirtDeal, BrittanyPants, FrenzzCollection, GoldySari and more. Shopbia’s website even has the strange disclaimer about not revealing your PINs and OTPs that is never included in real policy pages.
I found quite a few genuine reviews on on ComplaintLists. The customers have stated that they received no order confirmation or delivery even after making the payment in advance and that customer service is unresponsive. One reviewer has also alleged that Shopbia is a scam that was previously operating under the name Shopbiz.
It seems quite obvious that Shopbia is a scam. The website has been created only in January 2021 and is offering discounts that simply cannot be real.
The website content is copied and can also be found on at least 9 other websites, all of which may be scams. While the domain name has been registered in Maharashtra, a fake address of Rajasthan has been provided on the website. The phone numbers and email ID are all fake too.
Customers have written in reviews that they never received their orders. Their attempts to contact customer service were also unsuccessful.
Shopbia has evident connections to another website called Martbia that is also a scam. They also seem to involved in customer support scams by seeding fake customer care numbers on review websites. It is advisable to avoid shopping on Shopbia, as it does not seem to be a genuine online store.
To read about other Ecommerce Scams, click here.
How to Get Your Money Back from a Scam
Remember: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
List of websites using the same content as Shopbia
- bookmytab.com
- brandykart.com
- deal2k19.com
- martbia.in
- mobkart.co.in
- mydigitech.in
- PriceFactory_Stuff
- standalone.co.in
- Zack Deals
If you have been the victim of an ecommerce scam, you can take the following steps:
- Lodge a complaint at the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal
- File a complaint with the payment portal and ask whether the payment can be reversed.
- File a complaint with the Consumer Complaints Forum
- Leave a negative review on review portals such as Scamadviser, TrustPilot, OnlineThreatAlerts and SiteJabber
- Report the website to Google using the Suspicious Site Reporter extension for Chrome
- Give a low rating to the website on Web of Trust. You can also install their extension for the same.
Disclaimer: This review is intended for information only and should not be relied on when making financial or business decisions. If you are a website owner and would like to provide clarifications regarding your business and/or website, please get in touch using the Contact Form.