There’s a situation I’m starting to see more often.
At first glance, it looks like a scam.
Sometimes it is.
But sometimes… it’s something else entirely.
I ordered a pair of boots the other day.
Nothing fancy. Just a simple pair I needed for farm work. Found them online for a good price, cheaper than the big retailers, faster shipping, even a first-time discount.
The website looked solid. Clean design. Good product images. Everything felt normal.
So I placed the order.
Almost immediately, my phone rang.
I didn’t answer. Then a text came through.
It was the owner, thanking me for the order and asking how I found the site. That alone was unusual, but in a good way. We exchanged a few messages, and he told me the boots would ship on Monday.
Everything seemed fine.
The Website Works. The Business Doesn’t.
A few days passed.
No tracking number.
No update.
No delivery.
At that point, the experience starts to shift.
Not dramatically. Just enough to make you pause.
You check your email again.
Refresh the order page.
Start wondering if you missed something.
So I did what anyone would do.
Looked up the business.
Checked for social media.
Searched the address.
Not much there.
Why This Feels Like a Scam (Even When It Isn’t) (It was.)
Now the question changes.
Not, “When will these arrive?”
But:
“Is this real?”
Which is ironic, because I spend a lot of time helping people avoid exactly that situation.
So I called.
He answered.
Real person. Texas accent. Straightforward.
We talked for a bit, and it became clear pretty quickly what was actually going on.
He had paid someone to build him a Shopify website.
They built it.
Delivered it.
And disappeared.
Now he has a site that looks finished.
Products listed.
Orders coming in.
Payments processing.
But behind the scenes?
No real system or clear process.
No understanding of how all the pieces fit together.
He doesn’t know how to add tracking.
Doesn’t fully understand how orders flow.
Doesn’t have a real online presence outside the site.
And may not even have full control over how everything was set up.
So from his perspective, he’s trying.
From the customer’s perspective, though?
It feels exactly like a scam.
No tracking.
No clear communication.
No way to verify what’s happening.
Just a polished website and a lot of uncertainty.
And here’s the part that matters:
Customers don’t evaluate your intentions.
They evaluate their experience.
At some point, a lack of communication becomes indistinguishable from a scam—whether that was the intent or not.
This isn’t as rare as people think.
Someone hires a developer.
The site gets built.
It goes live.
And technically… the job is done.
But a website is not a business.
It’s a tool.
And if the rest of the system isn’t in place—orders, fulfillment, communication, visibility—you end up with something that looks legitimate but doesn’t function like one.
That gap is where trust breaks.
Not because anyone set out to deceive.
But because no one stopped to ask:
“Is this actually ready to go live?”
The simplest fix in this situation isn’t technical.
It’s honesty.
What Should Have Happened Instead
If, on that first call, he had said:
“Hey — the site is live, but I’m still getting things set up. There may be some delays.”
That would have changed everything.
Clear expectations. No confusion. No assumption of fraud.
Instead, the experience leaves the customer trying to piece things together on their own. And when that happens, people don’t assume the best. They assume the worst.
That’s the real risk.
Not a bad website. Not even a bad developer.
But a business that isn’t ready… presenting itself as one that is.
If your website is live, your business needs to be ready to support it.
And if it’s not?
It’s better to slow things down than to create confusion you’ll spend weeks trying to recover from.
Because once trust starts slipping, it’s hard to get back.
Even if everything else is technically working.
If you’re not sure whether your website is actually supporting your business—or just sitting there looking the part—it might be worth taking a closer look.
In this case, it WAS a scam as it turns out. At no point did the guy say, “I have not shipped your boots.” It was one lie after another, and when I suggested I would file a claim with my bank, he asked me not to do that because it “messes things up at his bank”.
Yes.
Chargeoffs will do that.
It didn’t have to be this way. Honesty could have saved him a whole lot of headaches. I’ve contemplated filing a claim with Shopify as well. I should, if for no other reason than to save others from the same headaches.
