They are lurking in e-commerce sites raving with suspiciously high reviews and sales
Several fake listings for Infinix handsets have plagued online e-commerce stores lately. They fool the user into thinking that these handsets came from the official Infinix store in Lazada and Shopee. These listings also use stolen official photos from Infinix and they also have an absurdly high amount of sales and ratings, to further conceal the true nature of the phones being sold.
The sample above shown here is the Infinix Hot 10s which is strangely sold by “Mi_Smarthome”. This is already a huge red flag as an official Xiaomi store WILL NEVER sell another brand’s handset. If this was legit, there would be a “Shopee Mall” label right below the seller’s profile picture.
Most of these fake handsets have fake reviews in them with poorly translated wordings. Their usernames are also mostly gibberish and the videos and images they show are most likely stolen from legitimate Infinix reviews from the official store. As mentioned earlier, to make the listing appear legit, the sellers use official photos from Infinix, further confusing the buyer into thinking that they’re getting the phone they want when in reality, this isn’t the case.
BUY ONLY FROM LEGITIMATE SELLERS!
If you want to buy a legitimate Infinix handset, always go to the official store. Lazmall and Shopee Mall sellers have a label on the bottom of their picture and the overall theme of the UI changes to red to denote that the store you’re buying from is registered for either Shopee or Lazmall. Some sellers may try to imitate this Shopee Mall or Lazmall branding by taking a screenshot of the seller’s profile picture. As mentioned earlier, a real Shopee Mall or Lazmall store is always coloured red, not orange for Shopee, or green for Lazada.
Official Lazmall and Shopee Mall stores also have several guarantee labels and their pricing is almost often the same as the original manufacturer’s choice. There are, of course, legitimate third-party sellers like Audionet, Rulls, MemoExpress, and E-phone. Just look for the “mall” marker to determine whether the item is legit or not. Fake sellers would often mimic this by screenshotting it, but a real marker is never a screenshot.
Also, before buying, be sure to check the price, reviews, and images. If the price is too good to be true, then it most likely is. If the reviews are poorly translated and feel scripted, that’s also a major red flag. Also, if most of the images and footage look similar and/or stolen, then better stay away.
Be on the look-out for similar fake items coming from different brands as they may have similar deceptive tactics.
REPORT A COUNTERFEIT LISTING
On Shopee, on the top right of every listing, there are three dots. Tap on these three dots to show three options, one of which is for reporting a listing. Tap on “report this product” and then on the next window, select “Counterfeits and Copyright”. In the next window, you can optionally add a description. After typing your description, simply press “report”, and then the report would be successfully sent to Shopee for evaluation. Now, this method may not be 100% guaranteed to remove the fake listing, so it’s best not to depend on it. It’s still better to be vigilant and aware of fishy and suspicious products regardless of what kind it is.