Many of my friends ask me on how to identify whether a website is safe or not? Can I make a purchase in this new e-commerce site or not? So in this post I will show you how to determine if a website is a fake, fraud, or scam.
Even if you are running Internet Security Applications there are lot of possibility that your PC can still be affected by malware infection, a phishing scam, or an invasion of online privacy.
Some Common Online Threads:
Following are some of the online threads a user will face. So one has to be extra careful to protect their PC as well as sharing personal information online.
- Malicious Flash files that can infect your PC
- Shortened links that lead you to potentially harmful sites.
- E-mail scams or attachments that get you to install malware or give up personal info
- Malware hiding in video, music, or software downloads
- Malware in photos or videos of scantily clad women
- Trojan horses disguised as video codecs, infecting your PC with malware
- Malicious PDFs that try to fool you into installing malware
- Drive-by downloads that install malware when you visit a site
- Fake antivirus software that extorts money–and your credit card information
- Fraudulent ads on sites that lead you to scams or malware
- Phishing 2.0 on social networks that tricks you into downloading malware or giving your Facebook login information to a criminal
Methods to Find Whether a Website is Secure or Not
There are many online free tools and methods available to cross check a site is safe, fake, fraud, or scam. Scam websites are growing every day and they started to use various blackhat SEO techniques to reach the first pages in the search engines for specific keywords. For this reason, we believe that this article is a valuable resource for any Internet user to spot the bad websites.
1. Analyze the Website in Scam Adviser
Scamadviser.com is a FREE website allowing people to quickly check a website is safe or note before buying something. This is also useful to cross check new e-commerce site before using credit or debit cards.
See my site results below.
Scamadviser shows Trust Seal of the website. Here for techpraveen.com Trust Seal is 100%. So it’s perfectly safe for users.
The FREE ‘ScamAdviser Trust Seal’ shows the world that your website has passed through the verification process to confirm it is a safe site to do business with.
2. Check if the Login, Create Account, and Payment Pages Are Secure
Many fake or fraudulent sites will not buy an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate. SSL(Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral.
And buying SSL cost money. A scam site, quite often, won’t bother with an SSL certificate, as the site will likely be shut down within a couple months after the fraud has been reported.
For example, you can see that sites like Bettingtop10.com are legitimate and secure because they have HTTPS on the URL and a lock icon.
3. Scan Websites Through Scamvoid
Scamvoid.com is another free online security service like Scamadviser. It allows users to know if a website is a scam or if it is reliable. In other words, this service makes easier the process to detect fake online shops and scam websites giving additional advices to the user.
Scamvoid uses a lot of checks on a website to detect fraudulent online shops.
4. No Contact Information in Website
If the website does not have a contact us page, or it if does and it only offers a form to fill out, this is a strong indicator of fraud. Any company or an e-commerce sites offering products or services, should have a place(location) of business as well as a phone number or email to contact them. If none of this information is available, then they likely to be a fraud.
5. Check the Shipping and Return Policy
Simple a fake site will have a vague shipping policy. If it is a real company, they should tell you how and where to return a defective product. If they are shipping a product, they should give you an idea how long it will take to arrive.
6. Check Other People’s Reviews and Compliant Forums
Type the website’s domain name, followed by “reviews”, into a search engine. Also search website name followed by complaint forum in Google search engine. You will be surprised to know that many people would have placed order and they either wouldn’t have received the product or received an damaged one.
Even they will be struggling to get their money back from fraud or less popular sites. If there are many negative negative customer reviews, then you will most likely want to avoid the site altogether.
Conclusion:
I have highlighted only few important methods of finding scam sites. I would strongly recommend you make detailed research in this regard to safeguard yourself from online scams.
Stay Safe Online!!!
