The Willow Tree Sale is a deceptive and fraudulent online shopping scam. Scammers exploit well-known brands to trick users into thinking they’re offering products at unrealistically low prices.
If you come across an online store that appears identical to an official brand website but isn’t, it’s a clear sign of a scam.
In reality, the site is phony, and attempting to make purchases on this fake site puts users at risk of falling victim to the scam. Furthermore, in many instances, no products are ever delivered, leaving numerous customers empty-handed despite their purchases.
Even in cases where customers do receive shipments, the items are often counterfeit or of such poor quality that they bear little resemblance to the promised products.
After conducting a thorough investigation into the fake Willow Tree Sale online stores, it’s very clear that they are scams.
First, let’s highlight the warning signs that label Willow Tree Sale as a scam. Even more importantly, we’ll provide information on how to safeguard yourself if you’ve interacted with this website.
Given that we’ve established these websites posing as legitimate businesses are fraudulent and have detrimental intentions for their customers, it’s only right to explain why.
Reasons why Willow Tree is a scam
Since we already identified Willow Tree as a fraudulent website with harmful intentions to its buyers, we believe it is only fair to explain why.
These fake online stores are responsible for significant financial losses. We believe this information can help users to prevent future scams.
The domain used for the fake Willow Tree was only registered recently
Domain name registration involves obtaining and utilizing a specific name for a designated period, typically a year. Once a domain name is registered, all its associated details, crucially including its creation date, are made publicly accessible.
As of the current date, a quick inquiry into the domain name of the scam through registrar databases like Whois reveals that the name is relatively new, having been recently created.
By checking the domain name in registrar databases like Whois, it becomes evident that the name has only been created recently as of the time of writing.
What does this mean?
Based on the available data, it appears that the web domain used in these online store scams has recently been established, having been in existence for only a few days to a few weeks at the time of your visit.
This in itself judges the credibility of the website and should already serve as a red flag to avoid the website at all costs.
We believe that these fraudulent sites have a relatively short lifespan, typically ranging from a few weeks to a few months.
When their scam activities come to light and they are labeled as such, the scammers responsible for creating these deceptive stores tend to abandon the current site and swiftly create a new one under a different name.
The Willow Tree webpage has little to no social media presence
Unlike the common practice among online brands to establish a presence on various social media platforms for brand awareness, the fake Willow Tree website seems to deviate from this norm.
There is a lack of significant information about this online store on any of the major platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Despite conducting thorough searches, we have been unable to find any results related to the domain that is used for the Willow Tree.
Although there are a few accounts with similar names, they do not appear to be entirely associated with the store we are looking for.
This raises another red signal because new websites find it difficult to acquire visitors through search engines, and if they are not getting natural traffic from social media, they are probably using dubious tactics to do so.
They incorporate stolen images in their product photos
Fraudulent websites such as the Willow Tree probably lack the means to feature authentic product placement images due to their lack of actual inventory.
That is why they might resort to generating AI-generated images or, more commonly, using stock images or product photos sourced from legitimate websites.
To verify the legitimacy of an online store, take a few product placement image addresses from the website and paste them into reverse image search tools like Tineye and Duplichecker.
This will help determine if the images have been used elsewhere online, potentially indicating a scam.
Large discounts that are too good to be true
As the saying goes, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." This statement holds, especially when dealing with online stores.
Large discounts often serve as bait, luring unsuspecting buyers into purchasing counterfeit items or, worse, receiving nothing at all in return for their hard-earned money.
We strongly advise buyers to exercise caution and refrain from placing trust in these seemingly irresistible offers, as they are often designed to trick online buyers.
If you genuinely seek to find products at a lower price, we suggest considering waiting for genuine sales events from legitimate stores or waiting for special occasions like Black Friday, where big discounts can be found.
Legitimate ways to save money through discounts exist, but websites that utilize Willow Tree to scam buyers are not among them; instead, such sites can lead to financial loss and disappointment.
No legitimate customer reviews
Our research for the fake Willow Tree website on the web resulted in little to no reviews regarding the products they offer. Typically, buyers rely on reviews from other customers to gauge the credibility of a store before making a purchase.
However, in the case of the said domain, there seems to be a notable absence of genuine reviews. This lack of feedback raises suspicions about the legitimacy of the store's operations.
It is also possible that any positive reviews found could be fabricated by bot accounts, aimed at boosting the deceptive store's reputation.
On rare occasions, genuine reviews may surface, warning users about the scam nature of the fake Willow Tree website. However, it appears that in response to such negative feedback, the store may selectively remove these reviews to mislead potential buyers and maintain an appearance of legitimacy.
Almost nonexistent organic traffic
The amount of organic traffic the website receives is another important factor to take into account. A website needs to have authority and be well-established to get traction from search engines, which frequently yields high search engine ranks and significant traffic leading to legitimate conversions.
The suspicious online stores mentioned, nevertheless, don't meet that description. A SEMrush analysis shows that these websites have only recently started receiving organic traffic, indicating it is still relatively new and that its legitimacy is still unclear.
Even though social media can be a beneficial source of traffic, every online company strives to develop organic and steady traffic.
In this case, determining the validity of these websites is difficult because it doesn't have enough organic traffic history.
The graph shows that these websites receive very little traffic, and their domain authority is far lower than that of an average online store.
A domain's strength and trustworthiness are gauged by its domain authority, and in the case of these online stores, it falls well short of those standards, lacking the credibility needed to be trusted.
Finally, directing our attention to the Organic Keywords graph, it becomes evident that these websites' keywords and content have only recently started appearing on search engines.
This observation strongly suggests that search engines have only recently taken notice of these websites.
Upon inspecting the left corner of the graph, where the website's historical data is displayed, there is no evidence to suggest that these websites had any prior existence, received traffic, or got indexed by search engines in the past.
The lack of any historical presence raises questions about these websites' credibility and long-term viability. In conclusion, the analyses conducted have raised numerous red flags, strongly indicating that it is advisable to steer clear of these websites.
How do fake Willow Tree websites scam buyers?
The fake Willow Tree website employs several deceptive tactics to scam unsuspecting buyers who make purchases on the site. The most apparent method is failing to deliver the promised products, essentially taking the buyer's money without fulfilling their end of the bargain.
However, the extent of the scam goes far deeper than initially expected. Our investigation into the website and the modus operandi of scammers revealed a complex exploitation of every aspect of the platform to defraud individuals.
The core of these scams does not solely revolve around the non-delivery of products; instead, it revolves around cunning manipulation during the checkout process.
Scammers can exploit your credit card for purchases
When customers reach the checkout stage, they encounter a non-transparent payment system that does not conceal the details of the card information entered.
This is why they only allow credit/debit cards as a payment method since other options such as PayPal cannot be accessed by scammers due to two-factor authentication and overall security.
By surreptitiously obtaining valid credit card numbers, expiry dates, and CVNs, scammers can perpetrate their scheme further. With this acquired card information, the scammers later proceed to make exorbitant purchases with the buyer's card.
To avoid detection, they have the products shipped to a different pickup location instead of their address, thereby evading direct ties to their illicit activities.
On the other hand, the victim is left with an unexpectedly high credit card bill for products they never ordered or received.
Use your email address and other data against you
The fake Willow Tree website serves as a versatile tool in the hands of unscrupulous individuals. Once you input any information on this website, it becomes ammunition that can be turned against you.
For instance, when you provide your email address while making a purchase or registering on the platform, the scammers behind it seize this data, potentially using it to send phishing emails.
By luring you into clicking on these deceptive emails, they aim to ensnare you further into their fraudulent schemes.
In addition to that, if you registered on their website and used the same login credentials, such as email and password, that you use on other social media platforms, they might attempt to gain access to those accounts as well.
They could potentially sell the gathered data to third-party advertisers or on the deep web, making it available for exploitation by cybercriminals.
Protective measures if you interacted with a fake Willow Tree
At SecuredStatus, safeguarding user privacy and protection is our utmost priority. If you've entered your details or made purchases on the website, you do not have to worry.
We have compiled essential protective measures to ensure your safety from the potential risks posed by the fake Willow Tree website.
Contact your bank for a refund and to prevent suspicious transactions
One of the most important things to do after purchasing from the fake Willow Tree is to contact the bank that issues your credit card right away.
Tell them about the fraudulent purchase and give them information about it, including the precise product(s) you bought and where its source of purchase is.
This is accomplished through the use of a chargeback, a consumer safeguard that enables you to dispute a transaction and request that your bank cancel a payment made to a fraudulent website.
It adheres to regulations established by card networks (such as Visa and MasterCard) and the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA), providing buyer protection for electronic financial transfers.
Furthermore, you have the option to request your bank to block any future transactions on your credit card, ensuring that scammers are unable to exploit it.
This can be achieved by initiating either a fraud alert or a credit card freeze, effectively safeguarding you from financial losses.
By taking this step, you block scammers' attempts to use your credit card and prevent them from opening new accounts in your name.
The added layer of security provided by fraud alerts, akin to two-factor authentications, requires identity verification before any purchases can be made, offering an extra level of protection.
Update your login details and enable two-factor authentication
As we've already explained, logging into fake Willow Tree websites with the same credentials you use on other websites could result in a data breach because scammers have access to information like your email address and password that you used to register on their website.
They can easily connect to websites where you have an account if the email address and password match those from your other accounts.
For any website where you have an account, you should enable two-factor authentication in addition to simply reset your password.
This will make sure that you go through a verification step before logging in, such as entering a 6-digit code that will be given to your phone number.
With this, only you will be able to log in to the aforementioned accounts. If you suddenly receive a two-factor verification, it signifies that scammers have attempted to connect to your account but were unable to do so because they lack access to the code that was sent.
Check for personal leaked data online
The very last thing you would want is for your email address and password to be made public on the internet. Since then, user logins have been taken as a result of data breaches at respectable websites and made available on the dark web, leading to the leakage of data.
All of the information you provided on the fake Willow Tree website is not secure, to begin with, that is why to guarantee overall safety, it is crucial to search for data breaches involving your accounts.
Using a leaked data scanner, which will look for potential leaks of information that includes your email address or password, is one of the best ways to check for personal data leaks.
You may use the following data leak checker tools to examine your data for leaks:
- Dehashed.com
- Intelx.io
- Haveibeenpwned.com
The websites listed above have a large data leak from which they draw their data. Rest assured that if the fake Willow Tree released your personal information, you might be able to find it on one of these leak detector websites.
Protect your identity with Aura
We recommend using Aura Identity Theft Protection, a powerful tool that keeps you safe from identity threats, such as SSN breaches and compromised online accounts. It actively monitors your personal information, ensuring it is not sold by data brokers on the Web.
Additionally, it alerts you if your identity, passwords, or accounts are detected on the Dark Web. Moreover, if someone misuses your SSN to open a bank account in your name, you'll receive an instant alert.
In the unfortunate event of becoming an ID theft victim, Aura's experienced fraud resolution team will guide you through the process.
They will assist you in dealing with credit bureaus, initiating credit freezes, and working tirelessly to resolve your fraud incident.
To further enhance your protection, Aura Identity Theft Protection also includes Identity theft insurance with a $1,000,000 policy covering eligible losses and fees related to identity theft for every adult member of your plan.
Hide your online presence with a VPN
Every website possesses the ability to track your location and gather details about the device you're using. Unfortunately, this information can be misused, leaving you vulnerable to various scams and fraudulent activities. That's where VPNs come to the rescue.
VPNs offer a vital shield of anonymity. By using a VPN, these scam stores won't have a clue about your actual location since your IP address is masked, giving the impression that you're browsing from an entirely different place. This adds a powerful layer of protection against potential exploitation.
Furthermore, the magic of VPNs lies in their encryption capabilities. They fortify your internet traffic, making it difficult for third parties to intercept and pry into your sensitive data. This means you can browse the web with peace of mind, knowing that your online activities remain private and secure.
So, if you want to safeguard yourself from the prying eyes of scammers and maintain your online privacy, embracing the power of a VPN is a smart and natural choice. In this case, we recommend Mullvad VPN.
Since user privacy is the main focus of a virtual private network program, Mullvad VPN excels at putting users' privacy first. You do not need to enter your email address while registering to download their application because they maintain anonymous accounts.
If you want to hide or don't want your credit card information to be disclosed, Mullvad VPN also accepts Bitcoin payments. According to their website, they support a free internet that is devoid of surveillance and censorship.
They have also been announcing new server locations to guarantee users a fast connection anytime they want to connect to various areas throughout the world.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Since we think you might still have some questions about the fake Willow Tree, here are some of the most asked queries regarding this topic.
So that you may leave this article knowing everything there is to know about the phony Willow Tree and how to protect yourself online.
How do I report the fake Willow Tree?
Fake online shopping sites that utilize Willow Tree can be reported to the Federal Trade Commission via the reportfraud.ftc.gov website.
When asked what kind of problem you are reporting, choose "Online shopping" and continue with the complaint. Make sure you provide enough information so that authorities can investigate the case knowing more about the fake Willow Tree websites.
What are the odds of getting money back from the Willow Tree scams?
In an actual fraudulent purchase scenario, your case is highly likely to be accepted for a chargeback, given that you are dealing with a fake online store and an unintentional purchase on your part.
As a result, there is a high probability that the money used to purchase the unwanted items will be fully refunded. Once your bank verifies that the purchase indeed originated from a fake website, the chargeback will be approved and the funds returned to you.
Can scammers from the Willow Tree scam steal your identity?
Identity theft is a highly widespread action among those whose personal information has been exposed. Since login information may be compromised, impersonating such a person will be fairly simple, making access to accounts and interpersonal connections easier.
If you followed the instructions above, you do not have to worry since your accounts are secure because all of the passwords have been changed, and two-factor authentication is enabled.
Not to mention the fraud alert freeze, which will ensure that scammers cannot use your identity to obtain a loan as verification is necessary.
Is it possible to get infected with malware from the scam?
The Willow Tree scam poses a great risk of malware infection because web users are required to provide sensitive information, such as their email addresses and many more. This information can be exploited by third parties to distribute malware.
As a result, you may begin to receive phishing emails with malicious attachments, which might cause infections on your computer. Using antivirus software like Kaspersky or Malwarebytes can immediately remove the malware for you in such circumstances.
