It can be difficult to spot a fake, fraudulent or scam website. Fraudsters can be extremely smart and utilise a number of techniques to get you to part with your money or sensitive information. We’ve put together some quick tips on spotting a scam website.
1. Check for the padlock
Any website taking your information should use ‘’https’’ rather than ‘‘http’’, this often displayed as a closed padlock next to your address bar. This means that the connection between your web browser and the website server is encrypted, preventing others from eavesdropping or intercepting your communication between your browser and the website.
Behind that little padlock is cryptographic code called TLS, that guarantees the security of data passing between you and, for example, the website you are looking at.
You should not submit any information to any website that doesn’t have this basic security feature. However, don’t be complacent, as https is merely one of many indicators. It's therefore important to use a modern, up-to-date browser that not only helps protect you from viruses and malware, but will also have security controls built in that will warn you about dodgy sites or stolen or incorrect certificates.
2. Double-check the domain
Many fraudulent websites use a domain name that references a well-known brand or product name. For example, website domains such as www.iphonesforsale.net or www.discountnikeclothes.com should raise alarm bells. These websites are not affiliated with the brands or products they purport to sell, why would Nike or Apple want to divert traffic away from their core website?
Sometimes scammers will try to replicate a legitimate domain, this can be done by misspelling or adding punctuation where it could be seen to be fitting. For example, ‘ofice.com’ rather than ‘office.com’ or ‘norton-motorcycles.com’ rather than the legitimate ‘nortonmotorcycles.com’. One of the more sophisticated ways we’ve seen scammers do this is through the use of the Cyrillic alphabet, using different characters to imitate a legitimate website. Avoid this by typing the address yourself and by not clicking links.
3. Trust-marks, can you trust them?
In Europe, there are more than 50 different trust-mark labels and logos in use, but they are not always an accurate way of determining whether a website is reliable.
A website is not always legitimate just because it appears to bear the emblem of an established organisation. To give the website an air of authenticity, certain scammers would simply insert an image of a trust-mark rather than the symbol itself.
If you’re in doubt, you could always contact the trust-mark company to check.
4. Utilise online reviews
Reviews for the website that are on the website could be made up by the fraudsters and are unlikely to be legitimate. Websites such as Trustpilot and reviews.co.uk allow you to see other people’s experience of the site and make your own judgement, on a site outside of the control of any scammers. However, you should be cautious in spotting fake reviews that could have been created to make the site seem legitimate.
You should also check the company’s social media pages for recent activity and to see what other people are saying about the site.
5. Think before you link
It's important to consider where you accessed the suspected website from. Clicking a link sent to you over by email or text has a far greater chance of being malicious than one you've directly entered yourself. Emails and texts also allow the scammer to mask the URL, hiding the scam website underneath.
Whilst search engines such as google and Bing do attempt to remove malicious sites from their results, they may not know about the suspected website and you should exercise caution when clicking links through these platforms.
6. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is
If prices seem too good to be true then, sadly, they probably are. Scam websites use low prices or incentives to lure shoppers to quickly sell fake, counterfeit or non-existent items.
If a website is imitating a government body or asking for sensitive information, take some time to do a wider search and utilise tools such as social media to verify its legitimacy.
If you or your organisation come across a scam or fraudulent website, report it to us using our cyber concerns online reporting form.