From phishing URLs to credential-stealing websites — get alerts for all sorts of scams and fraud. You might recognize them from suspicious URLs (“shein-sale.com” or “temu-offers.net” instead of “shein.com” or “temu.com”), poor design or unrealistic discounts. To learn how to be safe while using Shein and Temu’s services, check out our blog posts on Sheins safety and Temu. Sharing details of the scam helps us to protect others as well as inform our scams content, research and policy work. We will collect information relating to your experience of a scam, but we won’t be able to identify your responses unless you choose to provide your contact details. Ultimately, fake websites will always somehow find a loophole to nab people, even if you follow every rule in the book.
Key Indicators of Fake or Scam Websites
Fraudsters often copy trusted site seals and paste them onto fake websites to create a false sense of legitimacy. If you encounter a seal that seems questionable, take extra precautions by cross-checking the URL and other security features of the site to ensure the website owner is who they say they are. If you suspect a website is fake, there are immediate actions you can take to protect yourself. In this section, we’ll cover what to do if you’ve shared information or money with the website, bitcoin and crypto mining hardware as well as how to report a fake or scam website.
How do I know if a website is safe?
They might ask you to fill out forms with your details, which they can use for identity theft, or require a payment or purchase to enter the web spam contest, which is a clear red flag. When you’re browsing the internet, it’s crucial to keep an eye out for signs that a website might be a scam or fake. First off, check the website’s address; if it looks odd with misspellings or a bunch of numbers and characters, that’s a red flag.
These could indicate that scammers are attempting to imitate a legitimate brand or don’t have the resources to create a professional website. If you buy an item that turns out to be fake or non-existent with a credit or debit card, you do have some rights to get your money back. Link shorteners are free tools to make website links shorter, but they are also used by fraudsters. Companies tend to put their registered company and address on their website. It’s most likely to be displayed in the footer of the homepage or on the terms and conditions page.
eIDAS-compliant transaction and website document security solutions
- Sometimes, they might attempt to install malware on your device or trick you into buying counterfeit products.
- After graduating with a philosophy degree from the University of Bristol in 2018, Aaron became a researcher at news digest magazine The Week following a year as editor of satirical website The Whip.
- However, if you’re confident that the site is fake, you can report it to the Federal Trade Commission.
- All the URLs in this article (apart from the ones in pictures) have been created/invented to make some sort of point about URL scamming.
There are also some simple precautions you can take and some things to be aware of that go a long way to protecting yourself from these sorts of scams. An offshoot of the typosquatting method is ‘combosquatting’, which involves taking a related, legitimate-looking word and adding it to a genuine URL. So, using the example above, instead of ‘/sport’ it might be edited to read ‘-TV.co.uk/sport’. This is a unique identifier for the page, and every website’s URL is different; it’s sometimes called a web address for this reason. For all the internet’s merits, one of its major pitfalls is the ease at which scams and fraud can be committed.
You might notice signs like bad spelling and grammar, images that look blurry or low-quality, and layouts that feel off. If there’s no “About Us” page or way to contact the company, be wary. Also, if the website’s name looks a bit too close to a real brand’s URL but not quite the same, it could be fake.
Pro Tip: Visit a website checker to see if the site is legit
These are all signs that the website uses a higher level of security — known as an “Organization Validation (OV) certificate” — which is harder for scammers to fake. By checking the registrationRegistration A requirement for any person or company trading investments or providing advice in Canada. Securities…+ read full definition of any investing company or financial advisor, you can find out whether they are licensed to sell investments. You can also find out whether they have any complaints against them.
You need to be careful when you’re online because there are fake websites out there trying to trick you. These are called phishing websites, and they look real but they’re not. They want you to give them your private information like passwords or credit card numbers.
If you can’t find this information, it’s likely not a legitimate company. Once they take over your online accounts, you can lose the rest of your information, like bank accounts. We have always heard warnings that tell us to watch what we do online, and it’s important now more than ever to tread carefully.
- While the padlock is a helpful starting point, keep in mind that it doesn’t guarantee the legitimacy of the site—only that the connection is encrypted.
- If you encounter any of these issues, contact the seller directly for resolution.
- However, don’t rely solely on this, as scammers have become savvy in acquiring SSL certificates.
- To learn how to be safe while using Shein and Temu’s services, check out our blog posts on Sheins safety and Temu.
- This may include small misspellings or characters that look similar to others in order to spoof real URLs, such as replacing the letter “o” with the number “0.”
The first way is by a method known as “phishing.” Phishing is a form of cyberattack that is delivered mainly by email. The threat actor tries to entice you to click a link in the email that will then redirect you to a fraudulent copy of the real website. Official retailers have a dedicated webpage detailing their shipping and return policy. If the website you’re on doesn’t explain how to return an item, it’s a scam. For example, it tells you if the site uses encryption to protect your data, along with the site’s level of verification certificate. Man-in-the-middle attacks (MITM) are lesser-known, but they occur when a cybercriminal intercepts communication between two people.
But if you take note of these top 5 ways of spotting a fake website, you’re far less likely to become Dave. They also suggest that thanks to the trend towards improving organizational security, hackers will be more inclined to attempt to exploit vulnerabilities like network appliances and VPN gateways. This involves scammers recreating company VPN login pages and extracting victims’ details to access a whole network. This method is expedient for scammers largely because URL content filters don’t recognize the link, and it can thus bypass the filter easily. Importantly, shortened URLs often don’t ‘look’ fraudulent to both untrained eyes and those well-versed in online scams – so they can target anyone. All the URLs in this article (apart from the ones in pictures) have been created/invented to make some sort of point about URL scamming.
For example, sometimes these websites will use the wrong font when trying to replicate the original brand. After graduating with a philosophy degree from the University of Bristol in 2018, Aaron became a researcher at news digest magazine The Week following a year as editor of satirical website The Whip. Freelancing alongside these roles, his work has appeared in publications such as Vice, Metro, Tablet and New Internationalist, as well as The Week’s online edition. VPNs reroute all your traffic through private servers, masking your IP address and enhancing your online privacy. They have a multitude of other benefits how to read crypto prices too, and there are lots of options – so check out our in-depth provider analysis to see what the best VPNs for 2025 are.
How do fraudsters use fake websites?
If you don’t see them listed in the Canadian Securities Administrators’ national database, be wary about trusting them with your money. Unfortunately, scammers use the rush and gift-giving as an opportunity to trick shoppers. Follow these simple guidelines to protect yourself online and create the best possible shopping experience. If the site you’re viewing feels suspicious, take a moment to research and investigate it before making a purchasing decision.
Then, make sure no more money is going their way by stopping any payments. Next up, cancel any credit cards that might be at risk to block further charges. You’ll also want to change your most important passwords and PINs—think about your bank and email accounts especially. When you’re checking out a new website and want to make sure it’s legit, start by looking for what other people are saying about it. Use search engines to find reviews by typing in the website’s name followed by “reviews.” Trustworthy sites like the Better Business Bureau can tell you if there have been complaints. Also, look at review websites such as Trustpilot, Feefo, or Sitejabber to see if anyone has reported scams.
