Buyer Beware: The Unspoken Truth About Those “Heimisheh” WhatsApp Bargain Groups
For the longest time, I’ve been watching a trend grow across WhatsApp groups, statuses, and channels, and it’s really starting to get under my skin.
The business idea seems simple enough: someone wants to make money, so they start a heimisheh WhatsApp Status, post content, and collect ad revenue. Fine.
But what content do they post? Instead of providing real value—like news, entertainment, or even harmless lashon hara (just kidding!)—they make a disastrous decision: they launch a “bargain,” “glitch,” or “deals” channel.
The problem is that in this world, there’s rarely such a thing as a true bargain. If something looks insanely cheap, there’s almost always a reason. In the extremely rare case that a price is a typo, the person who made it will likely get fired. But usually, a human being set that price, not because they’re a gambler, but because they’ve calculated how to make a profit from the “deal.”
So, these annoying bargain statuses post the “deal.” An unsuspecting, trusting person sees it, buys it, and eventually figures it out. Or they don’t. I’m not sure which is worse.
To make matters worse, many of the websites linked from these statuses charge their own little “fee,” which is straight-up oina’ah (the prohibition of overcharging)—it’s legit stealing.
Here’s a Perfect Example:
So, it looks like an insane bargain, right? But it’s not true!
Here’s the scam they’re running:
They buy a base-model $250 HP laptop. Then, they “upgrade” it themselves with about $80 worth of cheap, no-name RAM and SSDs. Finally, they sell this concoction for $600 with a FAKE $2,000 “original price” that never, ever existed.
Even fully upgraded, the Intel i3-N305 processor in this laptop is entry-level junk. The machine is worth $400 at its absolute maximum, not $600! These statuses are just there to get you.
Now, I can’t personally investigate every single deal to prove whether it’s a bargain or not, but I know tech. And if one is a scam, and another is a scam—you can best believe they’re all scams.
Thanks for understanding.
My final advice: never, ever buy anything from these tiny, private “heimisheh” websites. They are just out there for your money, not for you.
If someone’s out for money, that’s fine. Become rich. I don’t care. But do it cleanly. Not through the P3 program in NYC, not through nursing homes killing old people, and not by ripping off innocent people like a Pakistani street seller.
All the best,
TripleU
