How to check if a website is trustworthy: 5 checks and 5 tools
A shop you have never heard of offers the exact product you want, at half the usual price, with free delivery. Before you enter your card number, one question matters: who is actually behind this site? A few simple checks often settle the question before you pay.
This guide covers the checks you can do yourself, then the free tools that automate part of the work. Neither approach is perfect. Together, they help spot many suspicious shops.
What fake shops are counting on
Most fraudulent stores are clones. They copy the design, the product photos and sometimes the legal notice of a real brand. You usually reach them through an ad, a social media post, an email, or a link posted on a site the scammers have hacked.
Their goal is narrow: getting your card details, or getting paid for something that will never ship. The page is designed to look reassuring just long enough for you to pay, and the shop may disappear a few weeks later. That short lifespan is the weakness you can exploit.
Five checks you can do yourself
1. Read the address, not the design
A polished page tells you nothing. Look at the domain itself: an added word, a hyphen, a different ending (.shop instead of .com), or a brand name followed by a subdomain such as brand.secure-payment.xyz. The real domain is the part just before the first slash. The brand name should appear at the end of that part, not at the beginning. For example, in brand.secure-payment.xyz, the real domain is secure-payment.xyz.
2. Find out who runs the site
A legitimate shop identifies its operator: a company name, a postal address, a phone number and a registration number. The exact requirements vary by country. Check that the details match the brand you think you are buying from. Copy-pasted legal notices are common: the text names a real company that has nothing to do with the shop. If nobody is identifiable, there is nobody to claim against, and little reason to send money.
3. Test the contact details
Call the number, send an email. A contact form alone is not enough, since it can lead nowhere. Slow, generic or absent answers are a warning: after payment, that is exactly the channel you will depend on.
4. Look at reviews outside the site
Reviews published on the shop’s own page prove nothing. Search the domain name on neutral platforms and forums, and look for reports from people who paid and received nothing. A shop with hundreds of five-star reviews and no trace anywhere else is suspicious, not reassuring.
5. Check how you are asked to pay
Cards and established payment providers leave a trail and allow a dispute. Bank transfer to a personal account, gift cards, coupons, cryptocurrency or money transfer services do not. If the shop pushes you towards one of those, stop: a legitimate merchant does not need to.
Five free tools that do part of the job
- ScamDoc (scamdoc.com). Type the address and you get an automated reliability report: domain age, hosting, technical signals and user reports. It is free, works in English and Spanish, and also checks email addresses.
- A WHOIS lookup (lookup.icann.org, or any registrar). It shows when the domain was created. A shop claiming ten years of experience on a domain registered three weeks ago is not what it says it is.
- The Wayback Machine (web.archive.org). It shows snapshots of the site over time. An empty history, or a site that used to sell something completely different, is worth knowing.
- Google Safe Browsing (transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search). It flags domains known for phishing or malware. A clean result is not a guarantee, but a red warning is.
- A reverse image search (Google Lens, TinEye). Product photos stolen from another shop, or used on twenty different domains, show up immediately.
One caveat on tools: they read public signals, so they can miss a very recent site that has not been reported yet. A good score reduces the risk, it does not remove it.
The signals that should stop you
- A price far below the market, with no explanation such as a clearance or a damaged box.
- A timer, a stock counter, or a discount that expires in minutes.
- No company details, or details belonging to another business.
- Only a contact form, with no phone number and no postal address.
- A payment page that asks for your card on a different domain.
- Terms of sale that mention no right to cancel and no company registration.
If you have already paid
Act quickly and keep everything: order confirmation, bank statement, screenshots of the product page, emails with the seller. If you paid by card, contact your bank and ask about a chargeback. If you paid by transfer or through a money transfer service, the money is usually gone, which is exactly why scammers ask for it.
Then report the site. A report helps the next buyer, and repeated reports are what get fraudulent domains taken down. Our guide on getting your money back details the steps when an order never arrives.
Keep in mind
- The domain name matters more than the design: read it character by character.
- If a shop hides who runs it, you will have nobody to contact if something goes wrong.
- Irreversible payment methods are the clearest red flag.
- Free tools catch most reported scams, not brand-new ones.
- Two minutes of checks beat weeks of dispute.