About FakeHaul

Everything here is fiction. Nothing ships. You keep your money.

FakeHaul is a fake shopping app with a very real-feeling ritual: browse, hunt deals, clip coupons, fill a cart, check out, track a package, and unbox it. The total is always $0.00 because there is nothing to buy.

Why does this exist?

Because the fun part of shopping was never only the package. It is the browsing, the deal, the countdown, and the little spark when you hit checkout. The box arriving days later can feel like the anticlimax.

FakeHaul keeps the ritual and deletes the financial consequences. The first version was built for someone I love who wanted the shopping feeling without the credit-card statement. Then it became clear that other people wanted a playful outlet too.

Is it good for you?

Honestly: we do not know. The person it was built for says it helps her ride out impulse-buying urges. A moderator of a shopping-addiction community offered the opposite view: that rehearsing the ritual might keep the habit loop warm.

Both may be true for different people. FakeHaul is entertainment, not therapy or treatment. If spending is causing real problems in your life, a qualified professional or support community is a better tool than a fake storefront.

Pay attention to how it makes you feel. If FakeHaul increases an urge instead of helping it pass, close it. Your wellbeing matters more than finishing a fake haul.

Not built for dementia. Found by it anyway.

I never designed FakeHaul for people living with dementia. Then families caring for someone with dementia found it. Memory loss can bring repeated online orders, forgotten purchases, and easy openings for scams. A shopping app where nothing can ever be charged turned out to be a safe place to let that habit run.

FakeHaul is still not a care tool, and it has never been tested with people living with dementia. If it helps in your home, I am really glad. If it made you smile and you would like to give something back, please give to the people doing the real work.

This one is real money. The button below leaves FakeHaul for the donation page of the Alzheimer's Foundation of America (AFA), a nonprofit supporting people with dementia and their caregivers. FakeHaul receives nothing and never sees what you give.

Caring for someone with dementia? AFA's free helpline, 866-232-8484, is answered by licensed social workers.

The boring facts

No payment system: There is literally nothing here that can charge you.
No accounts: Your cart, wishlist, and fake orders stay in your browser.
No ads or affiliate links: FakeHaul does not profit when you browse or click.
Nothing ships: The tracking and unboxing are part of the simulation.

Built on weekends by an independent software engineer. Have a wonderfully ridiculous product idea? Send it to @jackyang on X.