shoptowindeals com legitutilizes deceptive techniques and known brand names like Amazon, The Home Depot, and Walmart to fool visitors into taking an online survey. After completing the survey, victims are told they have won a valuable prize like an iPhone. However, in order to claim the prize, they must first pay a small $9.90 shipping fee.
This is where the scam truly begins. After entering payment information, victims are automatically signed up for expensive monthly subscriptions without consent. Additionally, the promised prize never arrives. Sadly, many honest, hard-working people fall victim to this scam while browsing the internet.
How Victims Are Lured to the Site
shoptowindeals com legit relies on unethical lead generation tactics to drive traffic to their scam website. The most common methods include:
- Malvertising – Malicious popup, banner, and video ads placed on shady websites. These ads may promote free gift cards, prize giveaways, or virus warnings to entice clicks. Once clicked, users are redirected to shoptowindeals com legit.
- Social Media Ads – Scammers often buy cheap social media advertising to target vulnerable demographics with clickbait offers. Messages may claim viewers have won a free iPhone or must take an important survey.
- Spam Emails – Deceptive emails are sent en masse to purchase email lists. Subject lines are catchy and content warns recipients they must take quick action to claim prizes or avoid account suspensions. Links lead to shoptowindeals com legit.
While navigating the web, staying vigilant against scams is crucial. If an offer appears too good to be true, it likely is.
An Inside Look at the Scam Website
Once lured onto the official shoptowindeals com legit website, users are met with convincing graphics and messaging to build trust and excitement around prize winnings and survey participation. Here is a glimpse at what visitors experience:
- Branding Elements – The site uses fonts, colors, templates commonly seen on legitimate ecommerce stores to appear credible. Logos like Amazon and official security badges are displayed despite being unaffiliated.
- Survey Questions – A series of short questions with buttons are presented covering basic demographic info. Submitting answers triggers prize notifications.
- Prize Selection Game – Users must choose from boxes as if playing an online game to secure prizes. Pre-set winnings are shown regardless of box picked, often iPhones, gift cards, or smart home devices.
- Shipping Payment Page – On this final page, personal and payment details are collected under the guise users must cover a small $9.90 shipping fee to receive winnings. In reality, account and billing information is stolen for recurring monthly subscriptions.
With an understanding of tactics used on the website itself, it becomes clearer how otherwise wary internet users can be smoothly manipulated into participating in sweepstakes offers and surveys.
What Happens After Entering Payment Information
Once credit card information is collected on shoptowindeals com legit for the supposed shipping payment, victims soon realize they have been scammed in multiple ways:
- No Prize Delivery – The promised free gifts like iPhones, smartwatches, or gift cards are never shipped out. Delivery timeframes provided were false all along.
- Unauthorized Subscriptions – Within 1-2 weeks, victims see monthly charges from unfamiliar third-party companies appear on credit card statements. Monthly fees typically ranging from $89-$299 are billed recurrently for mystery subscription services never signed up for.
- Payment Details Resold – Credit card numbers, passwords, addresses, and other sensitive information entered on the site are sold on dark web marketplaces. This exposes victims to future financial fraud or identity theft.
Essentially, the shoptowindeals com legit website acts as a fraudulent front to collect sensitive user data and sign unknowing visitors up for recurring monthly billing scams. The promised prizes and survey participation are completely fake – solely manipulation techniques to lower defenses before stealing financial information.
Step 1: Entice Victim Clicks with Misleading Offers
As outlined in the overview section, shoptowindeals com legit relies heavily on lead generation tricks to drive target traffic to their scam portal. Most visitors reach the site after clicking social media ads, contextual banners, email links, or popups promoting free gift cards, prize giveaways, or urgent warnings while browsing dubious websites.
Step 2: Build Trust and Excitement Around Survey Participation
After clicking misleading offers, visitors land directly on shoptowindeals com legit. The website branding and content focus intensely on building credibility around the advertised survey and prize giveaways.
Visitors see exciting confirmation messages emphasizing they’ve been specially selected to participate in an exclusive customer satisfaction survey. Completing the quick 3-4 question survey allegedly enters them into iPhone, AirPods, or gift card prize drawings.
Step 3: Collect Personal Information Through Survey Questions
Now that visitors are enthused to take the survey for prize eligibility, the questioning begins.
A series of 3-4 multiple choice questions request fairly innocent personal details like age, gender, shopping habits, and brand preferences. Users’ guard is down believing survey responses may improve Amazon, Walmart or other major retailer experiences.
Little do they know, this information is only gathered to build detailed user profiles for targeting and selling data. Still, the minimal questions seem harmless enough to proceed for the promised generous prizes.
Step 4: Show Visitors They’ve “Won” Valuable Prizes
Seconds after completing the short survey, exciting prize claim notifications appear on-screen. Despite random guessing, visitors are told they were specially selected as winners for iPhones, AirPods, Walmart gift cards, or other hot ticket items.
To build suspense, a simulated online game similar to a claw machine runs prompting visitors to pick a box hoping their prize lies inside. A countdown clock pressures visitors to select boxes quickly before time expires.
Ultimately, the victim’s “lucky” box choice reveals they have won either an iPhone, AirPods Pro, or a $500 grocery gift card. The only catch left is paying a mere $9.90 shipping fee and the incredible prizes will arrive within 3-5 days. Even savvy shoppers would have a hard time walking away from deals too good to be true.
Step 5: Collect Credit Card Information for “Shipping Charges”
Having come this far showing viewers personalized prize claim notifications, Shoptowindeals.com now asks visitors to validate eligibility by covering a small $9.90 shipping charge.
A reasonable shipping fee is what finally motivates visitors blinded by dollar signs to input sensitive payment information including:
- Full Name
- Physical Address
- Phone Number
- Credit Card Number
- CVV Security Code
Website language clearly confirms only shipping costs will be applied to visitor accounts. No recurring charges or confusing fine print in sight. Visitors gleefully input details, pay, and await arrival of promised iPhone and other hot electronic prizes.
Step 6: Sign Up Victims for Recurring Monthly Subscriptions
Within 1-2 weeks the cold reality sets in. Not only do the promised free prizes never arrive, but unfamiliar recurring $49, $89, or $99 charges from random third-party companies emerge on credit card statements.
These charges relate to monthly subscription plans scammers illicitly signed victims up for after stealing financial data. Monthly plans may be for pdf convertors, antivirus software, movie clubs, job listing sites, or other services never requested.
Sadly, contact information entered on the website cannot be traced as scammers utilize dummy domains and offshore hosting. Any credit card charge disputes also mysteriously fail. At this point, victims have no choice but to painstakingly cancel each fraudulent monthly subscription and monitor financial statements moving forward.
In the end, Shoptowindeals.com obtains all the sensitive personal and payment information they need to profit from underground selling of data, forced subscription plans, or potential financial theft.
What to do if You Have Fallen Victim to Shoptowindeals.com
Discovering you’ve been manipulated into entering personal information and hard-earned money into Shoptowindeals.com under false pretenses is understandably enraging. While some financial or data privacy damage may be irreversible, here are smart action steps victims should immediately take in response:
Cancel Any Active Subscriptions or Services
The first priority is identifying all monthly subscription charges, services, software, or physical products signed up for without authorization as result of Shoptowindeals.com credit card data theft.
Check bank and credit card statements carefully highlighting any unfamiliar recurring fees from the past 1-3 months. Common charges range from $89-$299 per month for unsolicited services.
Once all fraudulent businesses are identified, immediately call each company demanding cancellation of services and refund of charges. Be persistent explaining payments were made without consent. Dispute all charges with credit card providers as well for the best chance of remuneration.
Call Banks to Monitor Accounts for Future Fraud
Unfortunately, once personal information is sold on the dark web to Shoptowindeals.com or similar scammers there is no way to undo potential future harm. Financial account or identity theft may emerge down the road beyond the initial subscription scam charges.
As a precaution, call all banks and credit card companies used on the malicious website to flag accounts as high risk for fraud. Request increased security through methods like PIN code transactions, lowered cash withdrawal limits, online purchase verification procedures and have fraud monitoring enabled if available.
Ask financial institutions to issue new card numbers altogether to further protect accounts that may have payment data compromised unknowingly. Though extreme, total card replacement gives peace of mind against recurring financial breach.
Run Anti-Virus Scans to Remove Spyware or Keyloggers
Visiting technically-savvy scam websites like Shoptowindeals.com poses threats beyond immediate billing fraud or privacy invasion. Victims may be exposed to dangerous malware like spyware, keystroke loggers, or trojan bot downloads designed to capture passwords, financial data, or control devices covertly over months.
Run full system anti-virus scans to check for and remove these sophisticated hacking threats that historically bypass standard Windows or MacOS protections. Safeguard online identities by changing account passwords as added precaution too.
Monitor Credit Reports and Set Fraud Alerts
With bad actors potentially having access to full names, addresses, social security digits and more, victims should take measures to protect credit histories as well by setting up protective fraud alerts.
Order full credit reports looking for signs of emerging identity theft. Place 90-day fraud victim alerts warning lenders of compromised information to prevent scammers from opening unauthorized lines of credit. Options also exist for credit freezes stopping all access without approval and extended 7-year fraud alerts. Though extreme, such alerts provide security after falling prey to privacy threatening scams.
Report Scam Website and Charges to Federal Trade Commission
While frustratingly difficult to achieve direct restitution from elusive scam websites like Shoptowindeals.com, reporting these malicious sites and associated credit card fraud to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can build critical cases to some day shut operations down fully.
The more victims able speak up on shady business practices, file complaints noting financial damages and privacy violations, then stronger consumer protection rulings can be enacted. Add your voice by contacting the FTC fraud division online or by phone.
Is Your Device Infected? Check for Malware
If your device is running slowly or acting suspicious, it may be infected with malware. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free is a great option for scanning your device and detecting potential malware or viruses. The free version can efficiently check for and remove many common infections.
Malwarebytes can run on Windows, Mac, and Android devices. Depending on which operating system is installed on the device you’re trying to run a Malwarebytes scan, please click on the tab below and follow the displayed steps.
Scan your computer with Malwarebytes for Windows to remove malware
Malwarebytes stands out as one of the leading and widely-used anti-malware solutions for Windows, and for good reason. It effectively eradicates various types of malware that other programs often overlook, all at no cost to you. When it comes to disinfecting an infected device, Malwarebytes has consistently been a free and indispensable tool in the battle against malware. We highly recommend it for maintaining a clean and secure system.
- Download Malwarebytes for Windows
You can download Malwarebytes by clicking the link below.MALWAREBYTES FOR WINDOWS DOWNLOAD LINK
(The above link will open a new page from where you can download Malwarebytes) -
Install Malwarebytes
After the download is complete, locate the MBSetup file, typically found in your Downloads folder. Double-click on the MBSetup file to begin the installation of Malwarebytes on your computer. If a User Account Control pop-up appears, click “Yes” to continue the Malwarebytes installation. - Follow the On-Screen Prompts to Install Malwarebytes
When the Malwarebytes installation begins, the setup wizard will guide you through the process.- You’ll first be prompted to choose the type of computer you’re installing the program on—select either “Personal Computer” or “Work Computer” as appropriate, then click on Next.
- Malwarebytes will now begin the installation process on your device.
- When the Malwarebytes installation is complete, the program will automatically open to the “Welcome to Malwarebytes” screen.
- On the final screen, simply click on the Open Malwarebytes option to start the program.
- You’ll first be prompted to choose the type of computer you’re installing the program on—select either “Personal Computer” or “Work Computer” as appropriate, then click on Next.
- Enable “Rootkit scanning”.
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware will now start, and you will see the main screen as shown below. To maximize Malwarebytes’ ability to detect malware and unwanted programs, we need to enable rootkit scanning. Click on the “Settings” gear icon located on the left of the screen to access the general settings section.
In the settings menu, enable the “Scan for rootkits” option by clicking the toggle switch until it turns blue.
Now that you have enabled rootkit scanning, click on the “Dashboard” button in the left pane to get back to the main screen. - Perform a Scan with Malwarebytes.
To start a scan, click the Scan button. Malwarebytes will automatically update its antivirus database and begin scanning your computer for malicious programs. - Wait for the Malwarebytes scan to complete.
Malwarebytes will now scan your computer for browser hijackers and other malicious programs. This process can take a few minutes, so we suggest you do something else and periodically check the status of the scan to see when it is finished. - Quarantine detected malware
Once the Malwarebytes scan is complete, it will display a list of detected malware, adware, and potentially unwanted programs. To effectively remove these threats, click the “Quarantine” button.
Malwarebytes will now delete all of the files and registry keys and add them to the program’s quarantine. - Restart your computer.
When removing files, Malwarebytes may require a reboot to fully eliminate some threats. If you see a message indicating that a reboot is needed, please allow it. Once your computer has restarted and you are logged back in, you can continue with the remaining steps.
Your computer should now be free of trojans, adware, browser hijackers, and other malware.
If your current antivirus allowed this malicious program on your computer, you may want to consider purchasing Malwarebytes Premium to protect against these types of threats in the future.
If you are still having problems with your computer after completing these instructions, then please follow one of the steps:
- Run a computer scan with ESET Online Scanner
- Ask for help in our Windows Malware Removal Help & Support forum.
The Bottom Line: Avoiding Shoptowindeals.com and Subscription Scams
In the end, Shoptowindeals.com operates with pure malicious intent to mislead internet users into entering valuable financial and personal data under false pretenses. By enticing visitors to take branded surveys with prize offers then strong-arming credit card information for alleged shipping charges, this scam business steals identities, forces unwanted subscription plans, resells sensitive data and may install dangerous system malware given website access.
Moving forward, extreme caution is advised when encountering similar money-too-good-to-be promotions across squirrelly websites, social channels, inboxes or online ads. Look for these red flags signaling likely subscription scams:
- Branding From Well-Known Retail/Tech Companies
- Easy Online Game Simulations Where You Always “Win” Valuable Prizes
- Requests for Personal Info Through Benign Surveys
- Claims of Needing Credit Cards Strictly for Shipping, Handling or Processing Costs
- Spelling Errors, Grammar Mistakes or Legal Wording Oversights
No legitimate corporation would solicit consumers randomly through third-party channels with hot ticket item giveaways in exchange for taking a few fun survey questions. That business model simply does not exist. Anytime financial details are explicitly required upfront to claim promised prizes or free gifts, scam alarms should sound.
Be vigilant, trust intuition, and refrain from inputting details onto shady websites regardless of messaging urgency or seeming security assurances. Financial harm may happen split-seconds after personal data changes hands with unscrupulous scammers masquerading as familiar brands. Simply put, if the offer appears too good to be possibly true – it always will be fraudulent.
