You found a site. The deal looks great. Something feels slightly off. Before you type a card number or a password, run these ten checks — the full pass takes about five minutes.
The checks
- Read the domain letter by letter. Scammers live in look-alikes: amaz0n, official-brand-store, brand-name.shop. The real brand’s domain is findable in two seconds of searching — compare.
- Search “[site name] + scam” and “[site name] + reviews”. Victims post. Thirty seconds here saves the most money of any check on this list.
- Find who runs it. About page with a checkable identity, physical address, working contact — or an anonymous void? Legit businesses want to be found.
- Check the domain’s age. Free WHOIS lookup tools show registration date. A store claiming years of trusted service on a two-month-old domain is lying about something.
- Look for the padlock — then look past it. No HTTPS on a payment page: leave immediately. But HTTPS alone proves encryption, not honesty — scam sites have padlocks too.
- Pressure-test the pressure. Countdown timers that reset on refresh, “only 2 left” on every product, popups begging you to stay — manufactured urgency is a tactic, and honest stores rarely need it.
- Read reviews for patterns, not stars. All five stars, all posted the same week, all in the same voice = purchased. Check reviews on independent platforms, not just the site itself.
- Check the payment options. Cards and PayPal offer dispute protection. A site that only accepts crypto, gift cards, or direct bank transfer has chosen methods you can’t reverse — that’s rarely an accident.
- Hunt the refund policy. Missing, buried, or written in gibberish? You’ve learned how a dispute with them would go.
- Judge the images. Watermarked stock photos, product shots stolen from other stores, or AI-generated “customers” — the tells are learnable and they expose fake shops constantly.
One strong flag is a reason to slow down. Two or more is a reason to leave. No deal is worth an unwinnable dispute.
Want the deep version?
This is the reader edition of the checklist behind our Website Reviews by SJ series — where SJ runs the full audit on the sites you ask about, with a straight verdict at the end. Got a site you’re unsure about? Request a review through the contact page.
What if I already paid on a scam site?
Contact your bank/card provider immediately about a dispute or chargeback, change any password you used there (and anywhere you reuse it), and watch statements for follow-up charges. Speed matters most.
