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TIP: Spot a fake website
Dirty_Dave
Posts: 45 Forumite
When it comes to finding the cheapest deals online we want to go with the site that offers the best prices, but how can you be sure that the site you are wanting to buy from is real or fake?
I am going to use an example site called GHD Outlet.
***THIS IS A FAKE WEBSITE THAT SELLS FAKE GOODS DO NOT BUY FROM THIS WEBSITE***
Ok, how do I tell if this site is fake? First of all even though it looks well designed the price of the items seems a little too low, almost 50% off all their products, but maybe they can afford to sell them at that price? Or not.
Let's have a closer look at the site. Is there any information about the company, do they tell us where they are based? I cannot find any information anywhere that gives me a phone number or a real world address, however in the sites conditions of use its says:
With just this information alone I would be straight out there.
Next thing I do is perform a WHOIS to see where the website is hosted, the WHOIS check at www.whois.sc tells me that the website is hosted in China and is registered to a Chinese person. So, a Chinese hosted site with it's registrar in China and it's business site operating under the laws in the State of Victoria, Australia? Still sounds dodgy.
On the WHOIS information there is something else that can help us... the date of creation. It tells me that the site was registered on the 1st of June 09, so how can this date help us? Well, sometimes people that have an "About Us" page will tell us about their business, sometimes they will say something like "We are a well established business and have been operating on the Internet for 8 years....." Operating on the Internet with a domain that was registered much less than 8 years ago? Hmmmm.
Any way, this is looking really dodgy, let's check to see if they have any security for us shoppers in place, SSL.
/www.gmail.com - if the site uses SSL you'll see a little padlock in the bottom of your browser and to the left of the address bar in Firefox will have a blue bubble with the site name in it, if you click the bubble it will tell you about site that you are connected to.
In Internet Explorer if you look across to the right of your address bar you will see a gold padlock, clicking on this will also give you information about the security of the site.
So far the GHD Outlet looks very suspect, if you go ahead and place an order with them after the information we have gotten above, I wouldn't like to be opening up your credit card statement at the end of the month!
A couple of other things we can do is to Google the website name, if it doesn't have any web presence or only very little, have a closer look at what sites that are listing it. Remember that if the site is worth it's salt and sells real products everyone will be talking about it, it will be on forums such as this, blogs and review sites like DooYoo and Ciao etc. Remember to also post questions on forums and ask the community if they have ever heard of the website.
Some software I would recommend for both Firefox and Internet Explorer is WOT, Web of Trust.
When for example, you do a search from a search engine you'll get a round circle on every link you see and it will either be green (good), yellow (suspect), or red (dangerous). If you click on the circle you can see why it has gotten the rating it has got, if you visit a red site you will probably get a blacked out screen with WOT telling you it is a dangerous website.
Another thing is to spot any spelling mistakes, a legit company isn't going to be full of spelling errors.
Any way, these are a few basic checks that you can perform when spotting a fake website, just remember to trust your instincts and if it looks to good to be true, it probably is!
EDIT: Also if the company is UK based go to CompaniesHouse.gov.uk and perform a check to see if they are a registered business.
I am going to use an example site called GHD Outlet.
***THIS IS A FAKE WEBSITE THAT SELLS FAKE GOODS DO NOT BUY FROM THIS WEBSITE***
Ok, how do I tell if this site is fake? First of all even though it looks well designed the price of the items seems a little too low, almost 50% off all their products, but maybe they can afford to sell them at that price? Or not.
Let's have a closer look at the site. Is there any information about the company, do they tell us where they are based? I cannot find any information anywhere that gives me a phone number or a real world address, however in the sites conditions of use its says:
With the above I will hazard a guess then and say that the business is Oz based. On their contact us page there is no address or phone number, only a contact form and an email address, which is a free email from Gmail. Why would a business want to hide their contact details and why are they using a free email address?[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]By visiting GHD-OUTLET, you agree that the laws of the State of Victoria, Australia, without regard to principles of conflict of laws, will govern these Conditions of Use and any dispute ofany sort that might arise between you and GHD-OUTLET or its associates. [/FONT]
With just this information alone I would be straight out there.
Next thing I do is perform a WHOIS to see where the website is hosted, the WHOIS check at www.whois.sc tells me that the website is hosted in China and is registered to a Chinese person. So, a Chinese hosted site with it's registrar in China and it's business site operating under the laws in the State of Victoria, Australia? Still sounds dodgy.
On the WHOIS information there is something else that can help us... the date of creation. It tells me that the site was registered on the 1st of June 09, so how can this date help us? Well, sometimes people that have an "About Us" page will tell us about their business, sometimes they will say something like "We are a well established business and have been operating on the Internet for 8 years....." Operating on the Internet with a domain that was registered much less than 8 years ago? Hmmmm.
Any way, this is looking really dodgy, let's check to see if they have any security for us shoppers in place, SSL.
A quote from the GHD Outlet site:When you connect to a secure web server such as https://www.modwest.com, the server authenticates itself to the web browser by presenting a digital certificate. The certificate is proof that an independent trusted third party has verified that the website belongs to the company it claims to belong to. A valid certificate gives customers confidence that they are sending personal information securely, and to the right place.
I'm going to head over to http://www.digicert.com/help/ to check to see if the dodgy website has an SSL cert.... it doesn't. This is very bad news as the questionable website provides no security when entering personal information, such as your credit or debit card number, name and address, even though it says it does. Another quick check is to put an "S" in front of the P in http so it looks like this - https[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]How Secure Is Information About Me? [/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]We work to protect the security of your information during transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information you provide to us for purchasing of our products or services. We reveal only the last five digits of your credit card numbers when confirming an order. Of course, we transmit the entire credit card number to the appropriate credit card company during order processing. It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer. Be sure to sign off when finished using a shared computer by clicking the "log off" link located in the side menu[/FONT]
/www.gmail.com - if the site uses SSL you'll see a little padlock in the bottom of your browser and to the left of the address bar in Firefox will have a blue bubble with the site name in it, if you click the bubble it will tell you about site that you are connected to.In Internet Explorer if you look across to the right of your address bar you will see a gold padlock, clicking on this will also give you information about the security of the site.
So far the GHD Outlet looks very suspect, if you go ahead and place an order with them after the information we have gotten above, I wouldn't like to be opening up your credit card statement at the end of the month!
A couple of other things we can do is to Google the website name, if it doesn't have any web presence or only very little, have a closer look at what sites that are listing it. Remember that if the site is worth it's salt and sells real products everyone will be talking about it, it will be on forums such as this, blogs and review sites like DooYoo and Ciao etc. Remember to also post questions on forums and ask the community if they have ever heard of the website.
Some software I would recommend for both Firefox and Internet Explorer is WOT, Web of Trust.
www.mywot.comWOT is a Free Internet Security addon for Firefox and IE that warns you about online scams and risky websites that try to deliver malware or send spam.
When for example, you do a search from a search engine you'll get a round circle on every link you see and it will either be green (good), yellow (suspect), or red (dangerous). If you click on the circle you can see why it has gotten the rating it has got, if you visit a red site you will probably get a blacked out screen with WOT telling you it is a dangerous website.
Another thing is to spot any spelling mistakes, a legit company isn't going to be full of spelling errors.
Any way, these are a few basic checks that you can perform when spotting a fake website, just remember to trust your instincts and if it looks to good to be true, it probably is!
EDIT: Also if the company is UK based go to CompaniesHouse.gov.uk and perform a check to see if they are a registered business.
0
Comments
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I use mywot useful plugin for firefox I also do whois also and google search just to be safe side0
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My site does not bother with SSL because all payment stuff is done inside Paypal
Otherwise, agree all the way with the above0
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