Exposing Catharern.com Scam Minga London Sale

On Instagram and Facebook, Catharern.com advertises ”Minga London sale, everything is 3.99$” The low price makes it an irresistible offer for anime and vintage lovers who fancy buying Minga London clothing.

Lots of people want to know if it’s legit or if they would be scammed by the store.

I investigated the website and its products, I observed some red flags which strongly indicate it is a fraudulent online store.

Here’s a real person’s findings about Catharern.com

Analyzing Catharern.com

To ascertain the legitimacy of Catharern.com, we looked at the following metrics;

• Is it an Official Minga London Website – is Minga London running a sale via this site?
• The price point – Is the too good to be true? Do other online retailers offer the products for such amount?
• Its business address – Where does the website operate from? Is the store transparent about its location?
• Its History and reputation – How long has the online store been functioning? Is it a renowned business?
• Its Customer support – Can customers get meaningful feedback when they communicate with the store?
• It payment & refund options -Does it uses secured payment options like PayPal? Is its refund policy favorable to customers?
• Its Security – Are customers credit card details safe on the website? Can it be stolen with a malicious software eg – Keylogger?

Discovering The Loopholes

While analyzing Catharern.com, so many loopholes and red flags were discovered which make the website an unsafe store to shop from.

#1, The vintage clothing brand Minga London’ has just one website ‘Mingalondon.com’. Examining mingalondon.com, it is obvious that Catharern.com is a copy-cat website. Upon clicking on its scam Ad, it redirects to a product page that looks identical to Mingalondon.com. But on visiting the website homepage, it looks like a generic online store. There’s no mention of Minga London anywhere, but rather unrelated clothing are displayed on the storefront.

#2, The extremely low price offered by the store isn’t available elsewhere, not on any reputable online retailer. The price and so called discount sale can’t even be found in mingalondon.com, neither is it mentioned in any of the clothing brand’s social media pages. The very low price acts as a bait to lure customers into what could be an online shopping scam.

#3, Catharern.com does not disclose its business address even though its social media Ads mainly targets US residents. While this isn’t a fraudulent act itself, it raises a major concern of transparency. Over the years, it has been discovered that dubious online stores go to all length to operate anonymously. They do this by hiding their location, telephone number, e.t.c, in order to avoid the long arm of the law.

#4 To ascertain how long the store has been operating, Who.is domain checker tool was used to analyze the website. The result revealed Catharern.com was recently created, precisely in December 2024. This lack of history and transparency raises concerns about the website’s legitimacy.

#5, Catharern provides just an email address ‘[email protected]‘ for customer support. Mails sent do not receive feedback. The store also lacks an active social media page for easy communication. This of-course raise brows.

#6, The website doesn’t accept PayPal which offers protection to buyers. Without PayPal, refund requests is ignored by the store. Customers could either accept their loss or undergo a lengthy sometimes unsuccessful chargeback attempt.

#7, Catharern.com is secured with SSL encryption. However, customers could get unauthorised bill added to their transaction when they shop from the website, hence leading to unknown credit card charges. In some reported cases, customers were automatically added in a paid VIP membership subscription.

Catharern.com Store – Should You Take The Risk?

The cons outweigh the pros of shopping from Catharern.com. The outcome could either be delivery of counterfeit products or no products at all. For counterfeit products, customers could receive a different cheaper item like sunglass or scarf, or in the case of wears – inferior clothing that are below par, of different design, material, color and sizing.

Even with PayPal, getting a refund could be almost impossible. There’s a current loophole in the system that scammers exploit which PayPal has been unable to clamp down on. Here’s how scammers exploit the PayPal system –

Send a fake tracking code to you (which contains an address close to yours.

Claim the item has been delivered

Send PayPal a delivery proof which contains your area address (area code)

With this, PayPal believes the items has been delivered and when file a complaint it’s impossible to get a refund as PayPal sees it as a completed purchase

Got Scammed By Catharern?

Here’s what to do if you shopped from Catharern.com and got scammed;

Cancel your credit card

Immediately call your financial provider and cancel your credit card. By so doing, the credit card details you used for your transaction would become null and there wouldn’t be any unauthorised credit card charges.

Request for a new card

After the old credit card has been canceled, ask for a new card, it doesn’t cost much to get one. Your credit card issuer will issue you a new one with different numbers.

Report

Report the scam to relevant authorities and organizations. This includes:

• Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3): If you are in the United States, you can file a complaint with the IC3 at https://www.ic3.gov/.
• Your Local Consumer Protection Agency: Contact your local consumer protection agency or the equivalent regulatory body in your country.
• Better Business Bureau (BBB): File a complaint with the BBB if the online store is based in the United States.

Shop Smarter Online Using These Tips;

Having experienced the ugliness of online shopping scam, here’s how to avoid being a victim in the future;

• Search for reviews before placing an order. If there are no reviews online about the website, you need to proceed cautiously.
• Be skeptical of very low prices, especially Ads on social media offering huge discount on sought-for products.
• Be wary of Poor design – Fake websites often have poor design, bad grammar, and low-quality images. If you notice any of these on a website, then it’s better to do proper research before going ahead.
• Check the store’s contact Us page – is there a business address available? If yes, does it really exist or does a different business come up on Google when you search for the address?
• Find out if the website is secured with SSL encryption. (https and padlock symbols). Legitimate websites often use “https” (hypertext transfer protocol secure) in their URL.. If the padlock symbol doesn’t appear near the website’s URL, then it means your personal and financial information is at risk at the store.

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