You may have seen advertisements for Kick Have: Cape Town floating around the internet, but it seems like this e-commerce site has now disappeared.
Ensuring that your sneaker-game is always on point can be a full-time job. And while shopping online for the newest styles can be great way to beat the crowds and queues that regular, in-store shopping often entails, this way of shopping comes with its own risks.
Sneaker culture has been a popular hobby (or even, way of life) for avid shoppers all around the globe for decades.
But the reality is that the online world has also introduced a new wave of scammers and fraudsters that are looking to take advantage of those desperate to purchase the newest styles.
What happened to Kick Haven: Cape Town?
Online sneaker scams run the gambit, from the more traditional fake e-commerce storefronts to more sophisticated social media scams which swindle unsuspecting scrollers.
A company called Kick Haven: Cape Town has often been accused of leveraging its social media advertisements to lure customers in South Africa into purchasing sneakers and other shoes on an e-commerce website which never delivers the goods.
And though the company has tried its best to skirt around these allegations in the past, the Kick Haven: Cape Town website has now been taken down and the business’s social media pages paint a rather grim picture of its downfall.
How to protect yourself from Facebook scammers
These days, the worlds of social interaction, shopping, commerce and more are more intertwined than ever, thanks to social media.
And while this certainly makes shopping on the go much easier, it also means that you always need to be on the lookout for suspicious posts and advertisements.
In fact, a recent investigation by the UK-based banking firm, TSB, found that over a third of Facebook Marketplace adverts could be scams.
If you see an advertisement that you suspect may not be as legitimate as it seems, it is good to ask yourself the following questions:
| Nr. | Question | Description |
| 1. | Is this advertisement making promises that seem too good to be true? | Online scammers often use large discounts, special promotions and exceptionally low prices to entice customers to share their banking and personal information. |
| 2. | Is the website that the advertisement redirects to safe and secure? | Websites without a padlock icon in the address bar, or websites that have not been verified through a checker like Google’s Transparency Report are potentially unsafe. |
| 3. | How transparent is this website? | Fraudulent websites typically do not include much information about the business or its processes. If you notice that an e-commerce website does not list basic information, such as contact information, a physical address, an FAQ section, shipping and returns information, and an ‘About Us’ section, among others, it is safest to tread carefully. |
| 4. | Do the advertisements and website look professional? | It is best to stay away from advertisements or websites with spelling errors, grammatical errors, poor quality photos and various design issues. |
Examining the Kick Haven: Cape Town website
Whenever you are curious about a new business in South Africa, your first step should be to verify whether it is a legitimate, registered company.
Unfortunately though, there is no registered business in South Africa under the name “Kick Haven” or “Kick Have: Cape Town”
And to add another layer to the intrigue, the Kick Haven: Cape Town domain’s (kickhavencpt.com – which is seemingly no longer available) has chosen to keep their identity private.
This domain is also very young (it was registered in 2023), and the registration is set to expire on 2 June 2024.
Diving deeper into Kick Haven: Cape Town’s social media presence
Usually, having a presence on social media would be seen as a very good indication that a business is legitimate.
However, in Kick Haven: Cape Town’s case, the business’s Instagram account does little to bolster confidence that it is a legitimate business.
The two most recent posts on the business’s Instagram account offer unconvincing explanations about Kick Haven: Cape Town’s authenticity.
But the comment sections of these posts are rife with complaints of non-delivery and even fake shoes. There is also an obvious lack of tagged content or owned content on the page.
The final nail in the coffin – the Kick Haven: Cape Town reviews
The reviews for Kick Haven: Cape Town are where things really start falling apart. The business has a very-low, 1 out of 5-star rating on hellopeter.com.
Most of this business’s reviews complain that even though they paid the money for their shoes, the shoes were never delivered. One reviewer even goes as far as to call the business “Disgusting”.
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