Fake websites are pages designed to intentionally mislead visitors. These include scam websites with fake goods and services, look-alike phishing websites, and malicious websites containing malware and viruses. Consider signing up for Aura to stay safe with everything you do online. Aura proactively protects you against phishing sites, monitors your credit and sensitive information for signs of fraud, and secures your devices against scammers.
Grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in the website content can also indicate a lack of professionalism typical of scam sites. For example, tools like Norton’s SafeWeb will give you a safety rating for the website. It’ll provide details on why a site might be considered unsafe, such as hosting malware, having links to phishing activities, or other suspicious behaviors.
Quick summary of the best antiviruses for identifying fake websites:
When you input a URL into a link checker tool, it assesses the website against comprehensive databases of known malicious or phishing sites. These databases are regularly updated with new threats as they’re discovered. The tool checks various aspects of the website, including its hosting details, historical security incidents, and associations with any known security threats. Most companies have an online presence that goes beyond their website.
Use Safe Browsing tools or a website checker
We cover a little bit about trust marks and security seals in our piece on how to stay safe when paying online. E-commerce trust marks and security symbols will appear at the bottom of web pages and are utilized to indicate that the site you’re on is both legitimate, secure and, of course, trustworthy. In general, these marks and seals are given to a site after that site has been thoroughly reviewed for authenticity and had its security features verified. If you’re using a computer, you can hover over the link with your cursor. If it shows a different domain than what you expected, it may be unsafe. If a link doesn’t look safe (or you just aren’t sure), it’s best to not click it.
Fake YouTube websites
Any company offering goods or services should list a place of business, as well as a phone number or email address through which to contact it. Legitmate companies will always list how to get in touch with them; if the website doesn’t have a ‘Contact us’ page, it could well be fraudulent. If you receive a TinyURL link – ending in .tinyurl – you can preview the full link before clicking on it by typing ‘preview’ before ‘.tinyurl”.
Avoid any site that’s asking for the entirety of your private information. If that site already has your SSN, for example, they will only ask for the last 4 digits to verify the account, not the whole number all over again. Unless you’re on an official government website to pay your taxes or a parking ticket, or on a site for paying your rent or loans, avoid direct bank transfers. Giving away your bank account number and routing number is extremely risky, even when you’re entering that information on official sites. If you can avoid submitting this type of information on a website, do so. If there’s one thing you can always count on with online scammers is their general lack of complete attention to details.
You might find the person has reviewed hundreds of websites, which gives them more credibility than someone who’s only reviewed one site. Some of the reviews should be from long-standing members of the site. Keep an eye out for can i harm my pc by mining bitcoin pixelated images or graphics, and out-of-date logos or branding.
If you’ve stumbled onto one of these false domains, close the window and clear your history and browsing data to keep you from ending up there again. Report the suspicious website if you believe it is running a scam. The first step to avoiding fake websites is to know what you’ll see if you ever inadvertently land on an unsafe site. Most modern browsers are designed to make navigating the internet easier and safer.
- To stay safe, you need to know what these sites look like and how you can avoid them.
- Looking for a padlock should always be combined with the other checks we’ve recommended.
- Also, expand your review search beyond one platform to get a comprehensive understanding of the site’s reputation.
- In contrast, fake sites often display poor design elements such as mismatched fonts, low-resolution images, and inconsistent formatting.
The easiest way to tell that you’re on a fake website is when the domain name doesn’t match the official website for the company. For example, scammers often use domain names that are similar to — or even contain — the official URL within the fake domain name. In this guide, we’ll explain how scam websites work, how you can identify a fake website (with examples), and what to do if you accidentally visit or enter information on a scammer’s site. Scammers build fake websites to steal your personal information, passwords, and money. If the website you’re on has no contact information or only provides an email address that doesn’t look official, don’t trust it. Make checking the URL of websites you visit a common practice, especially if you got to that website from an external link.
Links to these pages are included in scam messages or even posted online to trap unsuspecting browsers. When shopping online, don’t be fooled into trusting sketchy websites because you might save money. These fake shopping sites either steal your financial information or send you cheap knock-off versions of the items that you think you’re buying.
If a site doesn’t have a privacy policy, it may mean that they don’t collect any data, or it could mean that they don’t want to let you know what information they are collecting. These warnings might say that your connection is not private or that you’re heading toward a deceptive site. If you see one of these warnings, close the window or click “back to safety” to avoid a potentially unsafe site. Install Norton 360 Deluxe to stay safer when browsing and shopping online. Download Norton 360 Deluxe to stay safer when browsing and shopping online.
By thoroughly assessing user reviews, you can better determine a site’s reliability and safeguard yourself from fraudulent online entities. The tool is community-driven and relies on user submissions to keep its database current and complete. As users report suspicious sites, PhishTank verifies these submissions, and once confirmed, adds them to its list of known phishing sites.
How to Report a Website as Fake
We allow users to leave comments, so don’t forget to share your customer experience, help other users to avoid scams. Check if a website is a scam, check if a website is legit and trusted by other users. If you’re a victim of an online scam, there are a few measures you can take to protect yourself (and potentially protect others).
Facts are important in a review; don’t trust a review if facts or actionable information is light on the ground. If it’s a real company, it should tell you how and where to return a faulty item. If the company is selling a product online, it should have a shipping and returns policy listed on its website. Watch out for poor English, such as spelling and grammar mistakes, or phrases that don’t sound quite right. If you are asked to pay for something online via a bank transfer, don’t do it. Using a domain checker like who.is can tell you when the website was created, a newly created website should raise alarm bells.