How to avoid being scammed when buying a robot vacuum cleaner: a working method

Greetings to all readers of the site robovac.washerhouse.com! We have already told you about it, How to choose the right robot vacuum cleaner And what factors should you pay attention to when choosing? It seems like all the key nuances have been laid out in detail, except for one. And this nuance is one of the most important—to avoid falling for scammers' tricks and spending money on a pig in a poke, or even losing your money and not receiving the long-awaited robot vacuum cleaner. As in any other segment, the robot vacuum cleaner market is riddled with scam sites, as well as counterfeit robot vacuum cleaners that simply don't live up to their description. In this article, we'll try to describe in detail how these scams operate and explain how to avoid them.

The first thing people often fall for is the low price. If you find a website where the robot vacuum you've chosen is priced suspiciously low, in 99% of cases there's something fishy going on. The price may indeed be 10-15% lower than the manufacturer's website. Large chain stores sometimes offer discounts, but in this case, the website's credibility doesn't call the situation into question. But if you find an unknown website, for example, Roborock S6/T6 It costs $25, not $360-$400. Moreover, the robot vacuum is new and defect-free, so it's most likely a scam. A price significantly below the minimum should raise red flags, but that's not all.

Following the low price comes the second scam: instead of the robot vacuum you liked, they offer you a low-priced, no-name alternative you've never even heard of online (and you probably researched the market before choosing). For example, you've chosen Roborock or iRobot, called to order, and the person on the other end of the line says, unfortunately, they're out of stock, saying they're sold out. Then they immediately offer you a different robot vacuum that cleans better, has more features, and is more reliable. Hear those words? You can hang up. They're scammers.

Suspicious prices

If you still have hope that this isn't a scam, but a good offer, you can easily verify the reliability of the website you're making a purchase on. Follow these five steps:

1. Google reviews of the website or online store that offers a suspiciously cheap robot vacuum cleaner or its equivalent.
2. If there are no negative reviews online, and all the positive ones are questionable, and there are no reviews on reputable industry portals (ireccomend, otzovik, etc.), then the scammers have likely created fake reviews of their online store. Your intuition will help you determine whether these are genuine customer reviews or fake text.
3. For more advanced users, another good way to identify scammers is to check the website's history (domain registration date, sites where positive reviews were left, and anything related). If the domain was registered recently and the owner is a private individual, there's a high probability it's a scam. This is especially true if the online store's domain registration date and the sites where the reviews were left are very close.
4. There are specialized forums, like 4pda, where experts gather. You can create a thread there and share a great deal you've stumbled upon. They might be able to help you determine whether it's a scam or not.
5. There are special services and websites that check domains for fraudulent activity. You might be lucky and the scammer's website might already be in the database.

Here's a simple method you can use to protect yourself from scammers. We have a clear example of a situation involving a fake robot vacuum cleaner on our website. Just read the comments below this article: https://robovac.washerhouse.com/en/obzory/drugie-brendy/robovac-iroom.html

If you found this information helpful, please repost it so more people can read it! Also, let me know in the comments how you spot scammers, if you have any experience with this. Happy shopping, everyone!