#dropshipping scams

[indiesellersguild]

New article: Is Dropshipping Indie Selling? (No.)

There has been a recent influx of social media accounts made to advertise The Wonders Of Dropshipping on any post mentioning ecommerce. Many of these seem to be bots, but a real person must be behind them -- so our very own Alex R. of @handmadehazefromtheheart decided to write up an article responding to the idea that these ecommerce "guru" types overlap with our member base of online indie sellers.

Excerpt:

To a consumer, the process of buying from big name versus indie online storefronts is the same: see the pictures, read the description, click “purchase,” and wait for a package. That standard makes it pretty easy for another kind of online seller to present you with a product on an original-looking webpage, accept your money in exchange for the promise of shipment — and then turn around and give (some of) that money to an actual supplier that sends you your purchase. [...] Ultimately, the Indie Sellers Guild seeks to be an online extension of the labor movement. In capitalism, things are often divided into a working class and an owning class, and we’re here for the working class. [...] [D]ropshipping is a way to claw at the benefits of being part of the owning class: gaining profit for nothing more than inserting yourself into a transaction that doesn’t need you to operate fairly. We don’t condone that, and we don’t represent that.

View it in full here.

For some insightful thoughts on print-on-demand selling -- something that we don't all agree falls under "dropshipping" but does overlap -- you'll find a link inside to another article by Valerie of Artisans Cooperative.

[fucklavenderconstellation]

i used to have more posts on this blog. i know i used to have more.

i dont know why they disappeared, i presume that maybe lavenderconstellation deleted the blogs they were using to advertise and my posts went with it. i archived a couple of them on the wayback machine, but due to unforseen circumstances(namely the internet archive currently being down) i cannot grab those links right now.

let it be known that lavenderconstellation is a dropshipping scam. they take products from aliexpress and such and sell them at a huge markup. they steal designs from actual artists. they get their products from factories overseas that frequently have horrific working conditions. do not buy from these scumbags.

they try to trick people by making "normal" meme posts, spamming them with trending tags, and then CHANGING the post to one of their shitty ads once it gets notes to trick people into continuing to reblog because they believe the post is credible.

do not be tricked by these people.

EDIT 12/6/24: i found the wayback machine link to a previous post of mine that explains the pattern of these scammy posts better, here it is, you can also find a post i made before that one in the notes of this post from meme-finder! stay safe, keep your money, don't support dropshippers!

[psudopod]

Wow!! I hate this dropshipper!

This is the same post

You can tell @my-kawaii--world made post A and then edited it to be post B. Post A was meant to trend to the top of the tags, post B was meant to pivot to directing people to their dropshipping store, "lavenderconstellation" Users see a post with a ton of notes and think "must be legit, these are real users, not just porn bots!" and think that the store website is trusted by all those thousands of users.

I think it's high odds that "lavenderconstellation" is a dropshipping website. Dropshipping is when someone makes an online storefront for a variety of curated products that the store runner neither manufactures nor even likely has their hands on. They use product photos they found online, they have no guarantee of quality or even that they'll be able to acquire the product when you it order from them. They may take your money and give you nothing, they may give you a random other product so they can produce a shipping label, they may send you a product that is similar to the photos. Not likely they'll get you the products as pictured at the prices they are listing.

At best, a dropshipper is a middle-man. At worst they'll take your money and customer info and you get nothing.

Again, it started as a meme and then pivoted to this ring sales page. As you can see from this person's comment, well noticed @hst3000 👍

I'm wondering about that @dduane reply, is faked or that a real reply she made at some point? Have they just been milking that "celebrity" endorsement for every one of the posts they made to sell that thing?

Always, linking to the same dropshipping store saying something that implies they just stumbled upon it and are not personally involved with the one store they are always showcasing products from.

Always, a dozen or more vaguely related popular tags that trend often, vaguely related to the product enough that you can't quite call it "tag spam."

[pomelowed]

Just went down a rabbit hole yippee!!

I follow this blog called @/my-kawaii--world because I like the aesthetics and this post came across my feed: https://www.tumblr.com/my-kawaii--world/753409702367477760/hey-this-site-seems-sketchy-af-as-a-lot-of-the?source=share

Those stuffed animals were so cute that I immediately went to the store to order one! But before I did I, like I usually do when finding new online stores, looked around to see what else they sell. I like doing this just to see if the items are really mismatched or if the other listings seem to be lower quality than what I'm trying to order. Well, the store, called Lavender Creations, seemed to offer a lot of items I saw on places like Alibaba or Temu. In fact, the mushroom purse they sell is one my sister bought off of Aliexpress. No worries though, artists oftentimes get their creations ripped off by dropshippers and their ilk so wasn't a death knell but definitely was a red flag. This led me to check it on scamadvisor and whoo boy.

It scored 36/100. The site has existed for years and it has a SSL but I wasn't worried about the site being a scam that'll steal my credit card info, I was just trying to figure out if it was a dropshipper and welp. One of the negative reviews stated that the supposed flash sale was in fact a daily sale (and I can confirm since me writing this post took long enough that the sale that was supposed to end at midnight is still ongoing despite the fact it's currently 1 AM). That was a dead ringer that this site most definitely wasn't the original creator or at least someone reliable. So, google lens it was for a reverse image search aaaaand

yeah ok unsurprising. Will say, none of these listings have the black & white one I was going to buy and that the dandelionevine was the only other one to sell the white version but also it's selling them for $60 which is way more than lavender constellation that sells them for $44 or $30 with the "sale". Also, amazon link is dead unfortunately because it supposedly was being sold for $25, the cheapest yet.

Now, if this was simply just a case of dropshipping then I would've left it at my reblog I made warning others about it BUT there's that first listing, Plush This?? They're the reason I'm making this post.

As far as I can tell they're the original creators! Awesome, great I can purchase him from here even if it isn't the b&w version I wanted, let me just read the full listing to see the specifics,,,,,, wtf

WHAT??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT WAS DESIGNED BY AI????? THIS IS A CAN OF WORMS I DIDNT PLAN TO ENCOUNTER????? Apparently, that's their whole thing: let AI design a plush and then recreate it which is honestly a really cool concept if AI wasn't known for literally stealing others' work (I'm ignoring the fact it would also mean it takes designers' jobs, which is also a shame).

If the AI was ethically trained then I suppose it counts as an original work? It's a bit of a grey area since no one actually owns the likeness of a cat (not yet at least) and plenty of artists create their own works by referencing others. So, who's to say an AI doing the same thing is unethical? I mean, there's a real human effort being put into realizing an imaginary item because this doesn't seem to be the usual AI scam of rendering an image and pretending it's genuine to generate purchases. But that ignores the fact there are limitations to artists on what they can produce (copyright laws exist and fair use clauses do too). So AI shouldn't be exempt from giving its fair dues to the people it should be "inspired" by and it should also be punished if it steals like a human does. Plus, the current state of AI is a lot more like replication than anything near inspiration so really that question cannot be applied in the current generation of AI.

There's one giant elephant in the room I haven't addressed yet: who is to say that the cat plush isn't based on some niche Etsy creator who had their creation ripped off by the AI model? Idk how it was taught so idk if the images were ethically sourced and thus if my money is going into a design that hasn't been stolen in some way. I'm sure they gave the AI a bunch of reference images of a Devon Rex from different angles and told it to make it a stuffed animal. But was the AI fed ethically sourced references of what is a plush? Or was it given Etsy and told to go ham in copying everything??

And, if the AI model WAS trained with stolen images, how awful really is the dropshipping aside from the ungodly prices?? I mean, my usual issues with dropshipping are: they try to sell junk for obscene prices, original works are reproduced without permission, & the profits of the original creator are stolen. But which of those issues are applicable in this scenario? The original work is seemingly high quality as implied with the reviews I see on Lavender Constellations & Plush This, so not all listings are churning out low quality crap, meaning the first issue is resolved. I mean, if people are receiving quality items that they feel is worth the price then there isn't any issue in that department. But those last two issues I have are the kicker, who is the original creator in this scenario?? Is it Plush This or is it the amalgamation of artists that go uncredited?? If the former then, yeah, these sites should not be selling their work. Yet, the latter seems much more in line with what I know about how AI is trained: unabashedly scanning and copying others' works without consent or compensation. Thus, I don't really feel too badly about it being resold on so many stores. It's already stolen work so they're all thieves to me.

Man, idk. It's unfortunate AI isn't simply a tool and the current state of things have festered and spread thanks to the lack of regulations. I imagine the AI models we have today that are made of stolen artworks will just be the concrete foundation and people wont see reparations for their work. Kinda one of those "them's the breaks (brakes?) kid" where laws will come into place that'll prevent AI from stealing others works. The question is will the people it already stole from be repaid? Or will they just have to live with the fact that the AI modules that are common use have stolen their work and wont stop continuing to profit off of that theft into the foreseeable future?

All of this is to say I'm not even sure if Plush This is the real creator!! I know I said I was almost certain they were but that's really only because the whole marketing scheme of their site is that the plushes they create are based off AI generated images and that kind of statement is too specific to only use as a selling point.... right?? Well let me start with this:

So, yes, according to Leila Wang, creator of PlushThis (why no spaces?), everything is AI to physical. Grand. Don't get me wrong, that's a real skill thats being just wasted imo, but back on track. Here's the website for you to check it out yourself: https://plushthis.com/ also they use MidJourney according to this article from last year: https://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/503245/introducing-plushthis-worlds-first-ai-generated-plushies-brand-revolutionizing-stuffed-animal-design

Scamadvisor gives it a 90/100 but only gives one review as an example when most of the listings have reviews, which is odd. This part is literally just me putting on a tinfoil hat so take the bit with a grain of salt, but I think they're having their AI write their reviews. They're all very,,, bland? I don't know if anyone has played that website game called "Human or Not" but the reviews are giving AI. As an example, here's the listing for a dragon plush they have:

and then here's a comment under it

It's a strange mix up to have when it's very clearly white. Worth noting they also sell a green dragon plush.

Also, the rest of the comments tend to usually have a comment on how soft they are? And if not that then how high quality the fabric is. And they all have the same grammar with what I think the nail in the coffin being the fact not a single review has missed adding at least a period to the end of the last sentence. Yes, that level of proper grammar isn't uncommon,,,, but for every single review??? Yeah, I'm not buying it. All this added to the fact Scamadvisor only pulled one positive comment out this sea leads me to believe these aren't real reviews and are just HTML code or whatever tf.

Ok, whatever, site is faking reviews with AI and staged photos. Big whoop, just don't buy from them,,,, WELL this is all going back to how I'm not sure PlushThis is the real creator of that cat plush. Tbh what I think is happening is a mix of dropshipping and "orginal" plushes. Why?

This lil blurb states every first image listed is an AI generated image.

Let's look at this guy: https://plushthis.com/products/cute-rabbit-stuffed-animal?_pos=72&_sid=8df0505e5&_ss=r

There's only two images given and when I look him up in reverse image search:

Look at all those. PlushThis doesn't come up despite this image supposedly being AI.

This guy? https://plushthis.com/products/pink-black-racoon-stuffed-animal-toy?_pos=1&_sid=ffe901991&_ss=r

Yeah, only PlushThis matches.

So, what does this mean? I think it means that the cat more than likely IS a dropshipped item THAT THEY DIDNT CREATE??? Which is crazy because the blurb attached to it is one of the few times they mention in a listing that the stuffed animal started as an AI image. In fact, that blurb is what caused me to spiral down into this!! IT ALSO THROWS OUT MY PREVIOUS STATEMENTS ABOUT THE ETHICS OF ALL OF THIS!!! This isn't my only receipt as the cat that started this all is listed here: https://www.dscopilot.ai/products/1005006873166491

It states that the supplier is the whitebeard' store on aliexpress. Now, this could always be a ripoff of PlushThis' original creation but I doubt they're the original creators at this point. Since every creation's first image is AI, that either means they didn't share the AI image, their whole gimmick, or it wasn't designed by AI and thus couldn't provide a generated image. So, the next course of action was seeing if Taihua Toys Hong Kong Co, PlushThis' parent company, is related to any of the sellers on other sites and that's too tall of an order for me. That's a way bigger deep dive than I'm capable of in this moment, but if I ever do try and see if I can confirm my suspicions, I will reply to this. Hopefully soon since a lot of the sites listed when I reverse image searched the cat no longer have it for sale. Is it possibly a parent company trying to clean up the internet and make it less obvious the item is actually cheaply mass produced?? Who knows, not me.

[hexjulia]

oooh new targeted ad scam and it's like this; ad for a "family business" store in your area (supposedly) that is doing a huge sale because they're going out of business (supposedly), they've been in [city] for 20 years etc. But when you click on it out of curiousity (why have i never seen this store before? I love walking around aimlessly) something feels off. None of the clothes from this fairly expensive store have recognisable brands. While the subcategories are dutch the filter menu is in english. The photography on the site just doesn't feel like the sort of pictures actual physical stores here take.

Take a closer look at the site. It was only registered a few months ago. Google the store to look at it on google maps. Doesn't exist but what does are people complaining because they've been scammed into buying really bad dropshipped items.

Not even that nefarious but it's so much of a more refined and thoughtful approach to tricking people into buying dropshipped low quality items than you usually see. Intriguing.

[robotpussy]

everytime ppl need more money it's always "get a second job" or start scamming people 🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️

[half-metal-scientist]

can we talk about how bad dropshipping has gotten on Etsy and it’s like the dropshippers don’t bother anymore

itll have the same picture for like 5 different stores so its easy to tell if it is a dropshipper, but its just become overwhelming in the sheer quantity of it

Like these three are from DIFFERENT SELLERS and they can’t even be bothered to get rid of the “CNW global” watermark from where they got the drop from!

[jaffre]

sooooo i got scammed 🙃

[ratpinkartiste]

Nothing boils my bile like those posts that are like:“hehe my boyfriend got me these shoes shaped like frogs” INSERT PIC OF SOME SHIT PRODUCT. “Hehe you can get them from here hihi I am not trying to scam you or sell you mass produced plastic that will end up in a landfill” INSERT LINK TO DROPSHIPPING WEBSITE

[indiesellersguild]

Etsy Shoppers: Were you scammed into overpaying for an item you thought was handmade, only to have it arrive with an obvious "Made in" tag?

Follow the link below to share:

Not a shopper, but a seller who's had your wares resold, designs stolen, or otherwise been screwed over by dishonest resellers? This is for you too!

[luisnomad]

Dropshipping Scams

🚨 Are you familiar with drop shipping scams? I am looking for someone who knows about this topic who can come to my podcast and explain how they work (fake/overpriced products, shady sites promoted on Instagram, etc).

Please share with your network or directly with that person you just thought about 😅🙏

Podcast link 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

https://luisnomad.com/podcast

[givrally]

I've seen this ad so much I have to speak up at least once.

What kind of 16TH CENTURY RING is available in seemingly limitless quantities, at a very low price for historical artifacts, on a shady website with worldwide free shipping ?

16th century ring that unfolds into an astronomical sphere

[marketingprofitmedia]

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[blackmoonrose13]

I had an interesting adventure thanks to a random gift suggestion on my throne

Uh cliff notes, I got a gift suggestion on my throne, which was anon, and also was a random keyboard, from a site I never heard off, at first I assumed it was a keyboard making company I was wrong...so very wrong. It was a drop shipper.

If you want to see in a series of tweets what happened I put them under the read under.

If you get suggestions from a site called Onetify don't take them its a drop shipping site, and my current theory is someone who works there or represents them is using throne gift suggestions as some way of advertising, Which if I tried to contact them, I have a feeling they would lie and say no. But eh a little mystery to distract me from working...okay I will go back to work,

[ai-art-thieves]

Investigation: Lavenderconstellation.store (or, how I started worrying and hate the aesthetic and meme blogs)

Looks like we got yet another epidemic of scammy garbage on our hands.

It's name is available HERE

GET IT HERE

GET THIS SHIRT HERE

Advertisements for websites disguised as posts.

Only problem?

These websites are dropshipping scam sites that inflate prices and create fake flash deals to make oblivious buyers take their products.

And it has infected numerous meme and aesthetic blogs.

They're already catalogued on this blog, so I won't have to restate myself.

HOWEVER, I did find something interesting.

Lavenderconstellation is not the only one.

It started when I looked into one of the sites plants, @/im-going-gh0st.

They created the blog on June 2022.

Initially, things seemed pretty normal.

Reblogging posts and memes.

That is... until June 22.

This right here is the first post and potentially the first appearance of loveandthunder.com

But that post was nothing compared to July 10th, 2022.

From there, numerous posts advertising the site began to flood the page, albeit with some regular reblogged posts to make them look less suspicious.

It also made me learn that @/throwbackblr, @/marvelness, @/deejay, @/johnwickofficial, @/heroesnewday, @/bong, @/elephantwildlife and @/im-so-3008 were a part of this at the time.

Love and Thunder even had their own tumblr, @/love-and-thvnder.

And all of us were unknowingly reblogging these posts.

Some people didn't even know these were ADS.

Luckily the site no longer exists.

....unfortunately it changed to Retro Mini.

Which is.... also a scam.

So we already got two stores that are straight up scams.

And a selection of blogs that have been advertising the site.

Most of them were aesthetic and meme blogs.

Sound familiar?

Wait, no. It gets better.

We got December 19th 2023.

That's when this thing started to show up.

Behold. The beginning of a new wave of stealth dropshipping store ads.

Adverts for RetroMini, Miyoo, and... on December 26th, 2023....

lavenderconstellation.store.

Scarily enough, that's not even the first appearance of that store.

It goes back further to 2022. In APRIL.

I found out when I saw one of their plants, @/shutupandtakemymonies, reblogged an account with only one post.

From this account.

That blog reblogged the hell out of that post.

These guys aren't just plants.

These guys are ASTROTURFERS.

@/best-black-friday-deals, @/bellaela, @/@cute-lovely-bee, @/bellapretty, @/viral-pink-toks, @/goth--roseee, @/carolineeeeeeeeeeeee, @/rosit-aaa, @/ee-jos, @/sword-grandma, @/alfred-xx @/dreamcore-posts, @/my-random--thoughts-deactivated, @/romaaaa-n....

And that's just the ones I could find in im-going-gh0st's archive.

A lot of blogs that reblog aesthetic or meme posts, reblog the hell out of the site, and leave the blog dormant when they are no longer needed.... which usually means that they moved to a different blog.

Some are less obvious about it than others.

I'm glad that there are people that are becoming more and more aware of this.... but that's not good enough.

We are dealing with a dropshipping, cheap videogame, price inflating online store with an army of astroturfers disguised as run of the mill meme blogs and aesthetic blogs.

And again, a lot of accounts fall for these posts.

This gives me some serious "They Live" vibes and I don't like it.

The only way we can stop them is to become the Nada of this story.

It's time to chew bubblegum and kick ass.

And we are all out of bubblegum.

[sp-ud]

Deadly self-cleaning litter boxes are flooding the market

If you either have or are considering buying an automatic litter box, please do not get a design that looks like this:

I won't go into detail in this post, but this specific design of automatic litter boxes has killed multiple cats and because it's one of those cheaply mass produced dropshipping esc products, there's not exactly one specific brand name to beware of.

I learned about it through this video ["This Scam is Killing Cats" by penguinz0] but his video is just a shorter signal boost for a longer more in-depth video ["The DEADLY self-cleaning litter boxes that have flooded the market" by One Man Five Cats]

MAJOR WARNING for distressing descriptions and demonstrations using toys/objects to show how exactly this type of automatic litter boxes is dangerous along with detailed stories from people who did directly lose their cats.

These are currently some of the cheapest automatic litter boxes on the market and loads are being sold and as mentioned in both videos, the product claims to have good safety features but the sensors aren't reliable and considering there are safe automatic litter box designs out there, this specific design is just downright neglectful.

I am making this post in the hopes to help make more people aware of this dangerous design and if they have an automatic litter box of this type, to stop using it before the worst happens.