Macy's scams
Last updated September 19, 2026
The short answer
Macy's scams are mostly counterfeit storefronts — sites advertising a Macy's closing-down sale at 80-90% off that take your money and ship nothing, or ship a counterfeit. Macy's sells only at macys.com and in its own stores; there is no separate clearance site.
Department store closures have been real and widely reported, which gives counterfeit "Macy's liquidation" sites a story that checks out when people search it. These storefronts are mass-produced — the same template, thousands of domains, rotating as each gets reported — and advertised heavily on social platforms. The second cluster is ordinary card phishing aimed at Macy's credit card holders.
How Macy's scams work
- 1
Counterfeit clearance storefronts
A social ad promotes a Macy's closing-down sale with discounts of 80% or more. The site uses real product photography and a checkout that takes cards. Orders never arrive, or a worthless counterfeit does, and the card details are reused.
- 2
Fake order confirmations
An email confirms an order you did not place, with a cancellation number to call. The call leads to a refund process requiring remote access or a card number.
- 3
Macy's card phishing
A message about your Macy's credit card account — a declined payment, a rewards expiry, a security hold — links to a fake login that captures credentials.
- 4
Star Rewards and coupon bait
Offers of large coupons or rewards points in exchange for a survey, ending in a card number for a shipping fee and an enrolled subscription.
Warning signs
- The domain is not macys.com — look carefully at hyphens and extra words
- Discounts are 70-90% off across the entire catalogue
- The site has no working customer service, or only a web form
- Prices are in a currency that does not match a US store, or the copy has odd phrasing
- An order confirmation arrives for something you did not buy, with a number to call
- A rewards or coupon offer wants a card number for shipping
- The site was advertised to you on social media rather than found by searching
Examples
The liquidation site
A social ad promotes a Macy's store-closing sale with coats at $29. The site copies real product photography and takes payment. Nothing ships; the order tracking link is a generic page that never updates. The same card is charged twice more over the following week by unrelated merchants.
The order you did not place
An email confirms a $689 order of luggage to an address in another state, with a number to call to dispute it. The "representative" needs remote access to "process the reversal", and instead opens the victim's banking session while they watch.
What to do
- Type macys.com yourself. Do not reach a store through an ad or a link in a message.
- Check real orders by signing in at macys.com, never by calling a number from an email.
- Pay by credit card — chargeback rights are the only reliable protection against a fake storefront.
- Look up the domain age and check for a real street address and phone number before buying.
- If you paid a fake store, dispute the charge as goods not received and cancel the card.
Report it to Macy's
Report fake sites and phishing to Macy's customer service at 1-800-289-6229. Macy's publishes no reporting inbox.
Getting your money back
A card payment to a counterfeit storefront is disputable as goods not received, and issuers routinely grant these — file the dispute with screenshots of the site, the order confirmation and any tracking that never moved. Debit card claims work through Regulation E and are also worth filing, though slower. Cancel the card rather than monitoring it: fake storefronts exist to harvest numbers as much as to take orders. If you gave login credentials, change that password everywhere it was reused.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a Macy's outlet or clearance website?
Macy's sells at macys.com and through Macy's Backstage inside its own stores. There is no separate discount website. Any site advertising a Macy's liquidation or closing-down sale at 80-90% off is counterfeit, regardless of how much real store-closure news you can find.
How can I tell a fake retail site from a real one?
Check the domain against the brand's real one character by character; look for a genuine phone number and street address; check whether the site is only reachable through social ads; and be suspicious of uniform very deep discounts. A domain registered weeks ago selling a hundred-year-old brand is the clearest single signal.
I ordered from a fake site. What now?
Dispute the charge with your card issuer as goods not received, cancel the card, and keep screenshots of the listing and confirmation. Report the domain to the FTC. If you created an account with a password you use elsewhere, change it everywhere.
Other companies scammers impersonate
Scams reuse their scripts across brands. If you were contacted about Macy's, these are the guides worth reading next.