Online Threat Alerts (OTA) - Alerting you to scams and frauds.
How To Know if a Website is a Scam? What to Look Out For

Online shopping can be a great and harmless experience as long as you watch out for these red flags and use some caution and common sense. But, if you do not know what to look out for, shopping on a fake website could result in your personal or financial information being stolen or your device becoming infected with a virus or malware. Below we will tell you how to spot a fake website.

How To Know if a Website is a Scam?

  • Do your research beforehand

    A quick online search of reviews of a website will tell you a lot. You can research the reputation of the seller through the Better Business Bureau and other official review sites. If there aren’t any customer reviews anywhere, that’s a concern. If you find large numbers of negative reviews, that’s a clear signal to walk away.

  • Walk away from deals that are too good to be true

    Sometimes retailers heavily discount older merchandise to offload excess goods or make room for new products, but if you find a site that has the latest iPad model listed at an 80% discount, walk away. Chances are high that you‘ll never see the goods you purchase or the money you spent.

  • Use only secure payment options

    Shopping websites should offer standard payment options, such as credit cards or PayPal. If a website requires you to use a wire transfer, money order, or other unsecured (and nonrefundable) form of payment, we recommend staying away, even if the rest of the website looks legitimate.

  • Watch for poor grammar and spelling

    An excess of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar mistakes could indicate that a website went up quickly. Companies with legitimate websites may certainly have the occasional typo but still, put effort into presenting a professional website. If a website capitalizes every other word or has a lot of odd phrasing and punctuation, take a closer look.

  • Check the domain name

    A favorite trick of scammers is to create websites with addresses that mimic those of large brands or companies, like Yah00.com or Amaz0n.net. Scammers count on you skimming over the address and domain name, so it’s always worth double-checking the address bar if you’re redirected to a website from another page.
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