On the heels of my post yesterday regarding scammers using fake websites to steal information from job applicants, I thought I would post a few pointers to help determine if a website is indeed legit.
- Does the site look professional? If the site looks very thrown together and has little to no content with typos everywhere, stay away.
- Is there any contact information? If so, do they provide a phone number and does it work?
- Check their website registration on whois.net. If the site has been around a very short time, beware.
- Use common sense. If you think it is sketchy, it probably is.
These are just a few and are in no way definitive or absolute. Unfortunately there isn’t a way to 100% determine if a site is on the level.
If anyone has any additional signs to look for, please share.
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I got one the other day in an email soliciting donations to the American Red Cross. The page was well done, looked very professional. Only giveaway was the URL. A search for the real ARC web page pointed me to a different URL. If in doubt, Google the organization and double check the URL.
Like that Floyd. Simple and quick.
Thanks too, to David, for drawing attention.
There are two helpful tips I can think of…
1. If you use Internet Explorer, make sure to use the Anti-phishing feature. In IE8, it is called SmartScreen.
2. For FireFox users, I would recommend using the McAfee SiteAdvisor addon (helps check for phishing sites, free and paid versions) and the Flag Fox addon (free – helps determine where a site is actually located). The Flag Fox addon would help for instance, if you see a site that is a bank in Alabama, Flag Fox may show that the site is actually being hosted in the Ukraine! It is not a definite sign that a site is fake, but does provide extra information to help you decide. AVG and several other anti-virus vendors have free or low-cost addons as part of their security suites that provide some protection while surfing.
As always, surfer beware!