I've been scammed

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment

Topic summary

A customer reports a suspected scam by ceciliamadrid.com: they placed an order, requested cancellation the same day (allowed within 24 hours per the shop’s policy), and after delayed responses the store agreed to cancel but has not issued a refund after 21 days. The merchant is deflecting responsibility to a distributor despite the payment being made directly to the store.

Recent status: Order cancellation confirmed; refund still pending after 21 days. The customer seeks guidance on next steps.

Recommended actions:

  • File a report via Shopify’s “Report a merchant” tool under “Fraud” or “Issue with an order.”
  • Contact the bank to dispute the charge or seek a chargeback, acknowledging time has passed.

Indicators of potential fraud noted by a responder:

  • Unrealistic pricing and sales that seem “too good to be true.”
  • Trustpilot page shows a single warning review (Trustpilot is a consumer review platform).
  • Domain is relatively new (~4 months).
  • No business details (address or phone), only a Gmail contact.

Outcome: No resolution yet. Next concrete steps are reporting the merchant and pursuing a bank dispute. The thread remains open with unanswered questions about refund recovery.

Summarized with AI on December 12. AI used: gpt-5.
1

Hi, I’m writing because I’ve been scammed by one of your stores, ceciliamadrid.com

I placed an order and that same day I asked to cancel it (their shop policies say it is allowed within 24 hours).

They didn’t reply for a while, and when they finally did, they said they were going to ship my order. After several angry mails from me, they finally cancelled it, but I haven’t been refunded yet (it’s been 21 days). I keep sending emails and when the times they reply, they say it’s their distributor responsability, but I paid them, not their distributor (as the bank statement shows), so they should refund me.

What else can I do?

Thank you for your help.

2

Hi @JennyInokuma

Sorry to hear about your bad experience. There are a lot of fake stores that take orders, leave with money, and do not send goods.

You should report this https://www.shopify.com/legal/tools/report-an-issue/report-a-merchant and use “Fraud” or “issue with an order”.

Also, try to contact your bank but a lot of time has passed. Maybe they can stop transactions.

But that store does have a few red flags. Yes, there are sales everywhere with holidays, and Black Friday so it is easy to miss that the price is not realistic, it does sound too good to be true. And that is a sign of a scam. One specific warning should have been a Trustpilot review, they usually have a link to the Trustpilot website but this one does not have one and when you search this link comes up https://www.trustpilot.com/review/ceciliamadrid.com with one review that warns users. A few other signs are, that a domain name is fairly new, just 4 months, and there are no business details, no address or phone. Just an email contact and even that is not a domain one but a Gmail one.

I hope somehow you do get a refund, stay safe.