How to Check if a Website is a Scam
The internet is full of opportunities to make money and earn passive income. With these great opportunities, there also comes risk of scams.
Way back before I started this site, I have already been searching for ways to make money on the internet. I even tried enrolling in make easy money programs online, only to find out it was a scam. But I have no regrets because through my years of experience, I have grown and is now more cautious in investing online.
Here are ways to check if a website is indeed legitimate.
Check the Contact Information VS Whois Information
Any decent website would definitely have a contact page with company address and contact numbers. Check the informations using a whois search if they match. Most of the time, fraudulent websites state that their company resides in the US but has a different story when checked in the domain whois.
Check the Age of the Website
A several month old website is more likely to be a scam site, although not all of them are. Because of this uncertainty, I only use the age of domain as an additional information in deciding whether the site is legitimate or not.
Check How Long is the Domain Name Registered
Do a quick domain lookup. Websites that plan to stay long in the business registers their domain names several years in advance. If the domain name is registered for only a year, I’d already have my doubts.
Check the Neighbors of the Website
Do a quick IP search to check the hosting neighbors of the website. Most fraudulent websites are in a shared IP address. If the neighbors sounds fishy or looks spammy, I won’t risk dealing with the site.
Ask Websites Associated with the One You Are Checking
Most people would ask around forums on whether a site could be trusted or not. The problem with this is you are asking for other people’s opinion. Opinions help but doesn’t really answer.
What you want is to contact websites associated with the company like it’s web hosts or site partners. This way, you are asking a person with the knowledge to answer you back with confidence.
Look at Reviews or Customer Feedbacks
This can only be done if the website does have reviews or show customer feedbacks. If not, you can contact the customers personally. Ask the customers about their experience with the company. Did they get paid? How long have they been a member?
It was actually a good thing for me getting scammed for several bucks. At least now, I am more careful when I am dealing with new opportunities.
Lastly, I would like to emphasize that it is good to doubt fishy offers, but let us also be open minded because there really are many genuine opportunities on ways to make money online.
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Have you been scammed? I’d like to hear some of your experiences.
Technorati Tags: domain lookup, fraud, scam, whoisPopularity: 49% [?]
you’ve been tag, by fellow wpp. http://myglitch.wordpress.com/2007/11/09/7-glitch/
waaa.. scams.. thanx for the info. nice blog..
Thanks a bunch Jayson.
Hope you found this tip useful. But most importantly, use it and don’t get yourself scammed. Haha.
Ye I scammed by the following site
http://www.gam-uk.co.cc and mail address are
admin@globalpostalexpress.com
ukcompany.abbey@gmail.com
info@gam-uk.co.cc
admin@globalpostalexpress.com
plz help me I sent all my details to them like pasport and address details so suggest me what shall i do now shall i complaint to the police about the scamm plz …
the web is littered with scam sites victimizing millions. thankks for lowering that risk for us. as always a great help and very informative.
Well said monaco. There are already a lot of scam sites and still growing. Glad you appreciate the tips.
yep, very useful tip! I’m sure not all (including myself) knows the techniques you posted here..
thanks!
Hehe. Thanks a bunch Eli. I know most of the techniques I used are not that popular, but it does work in finding out the truth behind those fishy sites.
Hi, the “seven” entries posted by other wpp are simplier, I also found it complicated, making it suitable to my blog’s concept.
You could check on other wpp blogs to see how they did it, I did. Thanks for dropping by.
Hi Ms. Glitch. Thanks for making this even easier for me. I’m actually checking out how the others have done it for some tips. Hehe.
Hope to see you around more often.
Nice tips. I now see that my SEO for Firefox plugin is more useful than it seems
Hi Maki. What do you mean that your SEO for Firefox plugin is more useful now?
I use SEO for Firefox only to check my site stats (PR, Alexa, Technorati, Age etc.), I didn’t realize that it would be very useful to check and verify some site stats of other websites.
[...] How to check if a website is a scam? - Mcbilly’s guide on detecting scam websites. Very helpful checklist that you can use to double check a website. [...]
sir,
is plimus inc is scam or not.
i have paid 49$ in data entry , i havent received anything.i m in homeworkrer.org
Hi deepak. I can’t access the website you provided. Could it be a typo?
Please be more specific so that I can help you with this.
I have also the same question with deepak. I am about to apply and send my payment to Plimus Inc through bank draft. The website is http://www.home-Profits.biz. I just want to know if this is a scam. So what happened now to you deepak did you receive their promises of paying you 5 USD per form after fillig out and submitting them? Please advise me regarding this before I step on this. I am also wondering why my payment is made payable to Plimus Inc. Is Plimus Inc also a scam? Is it operating legally? Mcbilly, please advise me….
Thanks
Is there a website I can use to check if a particular web-based business is a scam?
Thanks for bringing together all these usefull techniques to avoid beeing scamed. I didn’t know anything about many of them and I am very glad to discover them.
Hey I was wondering if http://www.easygpabooster.com was a scam website, there were actually advertisements on the bulletin boards at my university so I’m assuming it’s legit?
It’s legit - a good resource as well. If you’re thinking about it, I give it a nodd. Hope that helps.
I purchased a copy of easyGPAbooster and it’s good. I’m using a few the ideas, which helped me out this semester.
Hey Everybody:
Glad to hear it’s worked out well for you. I’ve heard from many happy students who’ve put it to use.
Feel free to send me your testimonials so I can publish them on the site!
Thanks for the support!
JW
что касается темы, то мне кажется актуальность будет известна только через некоторое время
Never buy any software from softwareclearancecenter.com
They don’t answer any emails and will not respond to a customer request for an exchange of paid for merchandise. A Windows version of software was purchased and actually needed MAC version. This was expensive ($697.00). Costly or not a consumer should expect to be able to communicate with a web biz operator.
Thanks sooo much Mcbilly! I followed the steps that you listed on finding out if an email I got wanting to help me find a job was legit. Turns out its not. I wrote the person who emailed me back and I never recieved a reply back after that. The domain name was: http://www.getemployed.org/ I was not able to find any reviews on it in any other blogs but it was only a month old and it has over 700 domian names registered at that IP address! Good thing I found this blog because if I hadn’t then I probably would have gone through with it.
I ordered some stuff from this website and it didnt come yet, could it be a scam. Can you please check it out and email what you think. http://www.iran-buy.com
im checkin the webite http://www.mynewcheap.co.uk and the only fishy thing is that they got shared IP address there is 6 other websites with kinda similar name… dont know if thats the hint that the website is fraudalent
i’m checking to see if the wholesaler http://www.sell777.com is a scam or not? regards,
Deej
wow this is really helpful… andami na kasi online scam ngayon which includes money making sites;; Good JOb!
http://www.downloademaillist.com; http://www.erecordfind.com; http://www.sexoffenderfiles.com; http://credit-card-processing-accept-credit-cards.com; http://www.mycourtfiles.com; http://www.cisworlwide.com;www.irstaxlines.com
claim to be in the us but they’re not! steal your information and ask you to send fax with all your information in order to remove your name from the database.
i have earned 140$ thru enzo-mails.com but i doubt it to be scam.its been copyrighted for 2008 alone ‘n i got no contact information about the location or address of that site.it jus asks me to post a question.can u plz tell me whether it is a scam site or not?
anyone heard of incomeplannow.com? what can you say abbout it? is it for real or fraud?
I want to know if I can register a site to some portal which I think can be a fraud site for verification?
http://www.freswhites.com
Can Anyone tell me if this website is a scam because they tell you their items are fake but im afraid they will take my money and never give me the item because they told me that their headquater are at China but I found out it was at Johor Bahru, Malaysia so if you can answer this it would be great
Hi there,
im just wondering if anyone out there believes this website to be fraudulent - http://www.trade369.com
Regards
Cahal
I am trying to find a good custom writing website are all of these scams? If anyone knows of a good one please let me know thanks.
Heyyyy.
I was just wondering if anyone knows if http://elitegametester.com/ is a fake site. ehhh i dont get all the technical IP Address neighbor checking stuff.
This site is really a great help! Thank you so much McBilly! It’s been a long time since I’m searching how to check websites that are legitimate or not; until I found your site, it’s really a great help to me.
By the way, do you believe on what this website had offer? http://www.my-data-team.com
Please let me know… Hope to hear from you soon!
Hi, I am trying to sell some used textbooks and I want to find out more about etextshop, if anyone has sent textbooks to them please let me know if they are honest in sending payment!
thanks!
Several years ago all scam sites looked identical. Long page with images and white background. You need some “999999 visitor - 1mln bucks for you” banners and a “quick money” sign. If it glitters it’s even better. Nowadays it’s not so easy to diminish scam site from a quality one.
I found this website but I am not sure if it is legitimate. Could you please help?
qwholesale.com
pe-export.com
and
export-panama.com
are just scammers
I got an at home job offer from this company, is it a scam? Please email me at email address listed and put the name merchant e solution in the subject. Thanks.
http://www.merchante-solutions.com/
The URL appears to be legit, however, to be certain that the email is not malicious, I suggest that you study the email headers to make sure where the email came from. Additionally, verify by hovering your cursor over the URL address that it is pointing to the IP address that belongs to this domain.
Oops! the URL could should point to the same domain name or the appropiate IP address.
Я так понимаю, в самом последнем абзаце как раз вся соль и изложена
Great tips… I like to have a PageRank checker. I love Google, so if they think the site is relevant to give them say… a page rank of 3, it’s good enough for me.
Great article, you really gave a lot of good information on this article for scam sites and I hope a lot of people read this one. I did a RT for you too!
Cheers,
Ricky