Fraud & Scams

Helpful Tips On Preventing Frauds and Scams

Securing Your Personal Information

One of Witchdoctors highest priorities is keeping customers' personal information secure and confidential. Below are some of the typical scams that you may encounter as well as suggestions on how to protect yourself against identity theft and fraud.

Fake Websites

Witchdoctors currently sells powersports parts and accessories at low prices only at our retail store in Warren Ohio and online at Witchdoctors.com. We do not sell through Amazon.com, eBay or any other websites. Beware of other websites illegally using our logo to fool or scam customers into buying inferior versions of our products, purchasing illegally obtained merchandise, or obtaining your personal information for criminal purposes. 

 

Buying our products through these other websites also voids any warranty that our legitimately sold products have.

 

Fake Facebook Accounts

Fake Facebook account scams involve malicious actors creating fraudulent profiles to deceive and exploit users. These imposter accounts often mimic real people (friends, celebrities, public figures) or legitimate businesses to gain trust. Their goal is typically to trick victims into divulging personal information, clicking on malicious links, sending money, or falling for various schemes like romance scams, fake giveaways, or fraudulent job offers.

Common characteristics of fake accounts include:

• Recently created profiles with little activity.
• Few or no personal photos, often using stolen or stock images.
• Limited friend lists or a disproportionate number of friends from unusual demographics.
• Inconsistent or incomplete profile information.
• Suspicious links or messages with poor grammar or a sense of urgency.

These scams leverage social engineering, preying on emotions like curiosity, fear, or excitement to manipulate users into taking actions that benefit the scammer, ultimately leading to financial loss, identity theft, or account compromise

 

Pop-Up Ads, Malware, and Adware

Malware and adware are malicious programs that may reside on your computer hard drive. Such malicious programs may display advertisement "pop ups" or browser windows claiming that you have won a contest, or they may request your participation in a survey to collect a gift card, prize or other offering. They may even ask you to provide personal information in order to receive the offering. These ads or pop-ups are typically designed to look and feel like they are part of the website you are browsing. 

 

Do not submit any personal information to or click on these ads or pop-ups. Simply clicking on them alone may download viruses or other malicious programs designed to capture, compromise or destroy data and information on your computer.

 

Fake Emails or Survey

Witchdoctors does occasionally email surveys, we will NEVER ask you to pay for anything connected to one of our surveys. Unfortunately, there are online criminals who create emails that make it look like the sender is a well-known retailer, and these criminals are now using Witchdoctors logo to send fake surveys. These criminals did NOT get your email address from us, although they seem to be emailing everyone they can.

This criminal activity is called “Spoofing”. Spoofed emails are designed to look as real as possible by using email addresses or links that look like they are coming from a real company like Witchdoctors – even though they are not.

Below are some tips to think about to keep you safe from bad emails and texts:

·         Be suspicious of any email or text that asks for your personal information, credit card information or passwords.

·         Look for spelling and grammar errors. Suspicious emails and texts are often poorly written.

·         If you are suspicious of any email or text, do not open it. Do not open or download anything attached to it. Do not click on any link in it. And do not reply to it. Doing any of these things may spread a virus and harm your device.

·         If you are suspicious of any email or text, delete it immediately.

·         Be suspicious of any social media post that asks you to complete a survey for a free product.

If you are a victim of an email or text scam, be sure to take appropriate action. We recommend you change your passwords, call your credit card company, and notify credit reporting agencies to freeze or lock your information.

Paid Product Review Scam

A scam has emerged on social media sites from criminals saying that Witchdoctors pays for product reviews. It falsely states that a person could earn money through this nonexistent program, by signing up to learn how it works. The scammer then will require your personal information and credit card information for participation, which the scammer then uses for illegal purposes.

Witchdoctors will NEVER pay for a review. We value your opinion and welcome your feedback. It is important, to us and to you, that our product reviews are authentic, unbiased, and accurately reflect the user’s opinion.

Check Scams

This is a similar but low-tech scam similar to how pop-up ads work (see above). You may receive a check via regular mail that says its from Witchdoctors. The check will usually be accompanied with instructions to deposit the check immediately in order to receive the balance of a larger sum you have "won" or that has otherwise come to you unexpectedly. You will be instructed to immediately send a payment, in the form of a second personal check, wire transfer, or similar method to a third party to cover taxes, processing fees, administrative costs, etc. 

 

The check will look authentic and probably have a Witchdoctors logo on it. Do not deposit the check or follow the instructions that accompany the check. The check that you received and deposited with your financial institution will bounce while the check that you write or the funds that you wire or otherwise transmit to the third party will clear before you realize that the original check you received is not genuine.

 

Preventative Measures

In order to help you defend yourself against the above deceptive practices, Witchdoctors suggests you comply with the following courses of action:

·         Never respond to emails that cannot be verified

·         Never provide personal information via email nor over the telephone unless you have initiated the phone call to a recipient phone number that you know is legitimate

·         Contact businesses by using legitimate phone numbers to verify requests

·       Go to Witchdoctors.com using your browser and not by clicking on outside links

·         Be cautious of any solicitation requesting that you deposit a check or pay a fee to collect a prize, get a job or cover vaguely described "costs"

·         If you think you are a victim of cybercrime, consider filing a report with the Federal Trade Commission and/or state attorney general's consumer protection office or the FBI. Online complaints may be filed with the FTC at https://www.ftc.gov or the Internet Crime Complaint Center at https://www.ic3.gov/.

 

If you think you are the victim of identity theft, consider filing a report at https://www.identitytheft.gov.

More information may also be found on the Federal Trade Commission's website https://www.ftc.gov.

 

To report any suspicious websites, emails or surveys that are using Witchdoctors name, please send them to Reportascam