Scam Watch

If you’re considering doing business with a company that you are encountering for the first time, there are several ways of evaluating the potential trustworthiness based upon their website. By following a comprehensive approach to reviewing their site, you can ensure that you will work with quality companies and avoid the fraud and scams that are all too common today.

As a first approach, any company that you work with should have a web presence, and you can cast initial judgment based upon the care in which they have setup their site. There are several elements on the site which should be present, and signal a more trustworthy company. Firstly, you’ll want to find a full set of contact information, including phone, address and email address, along with their hours of operation. Once you have located their contact information, you should call the phone number and ask a basic question to ensure they pass an initial test of being a basic, legitimate organization. Next, it’s important to review the “About Us” and informational sections on the website to find out as much information as you can from their provided information. All companies should also have a “privacy policy” on their site, which is an important part of any professional site. Now that you’ve established a baseline evaluation, there are a series of next steps you should take to provide further assurance for your level of engagement.

For company’s that your are purchasing a product from or buying a service online, check to make sure that you’re direction to a secure server as denoted with “https” prefix on the site’s URL. Additionally, many companies have certification seals from 3rd party services that provide assurances that they are trustworthy. The surefire way to establish the validity of a company is to seek out genuine testimonials and reviews of their offerings – in additional to those provided on the company’s site, you should seek out external validation of the company.

Independent of a company’s self-published information, you’ll want to conduct a web search to find background information on the company itself. A simple search can first determine what information has been published on the company. If a company is a scam, there will be several red flags based on reviews, complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) or blog posts complaining about poor customer service. Once you have conduct a thorough search for external information, see if you can find a guarantee or return policy from the site to ensure satisfaction – if the site is secure, you’re most likely to be able to challenge a purchase after the fact through a credit card (never pay cash or wire, as you can’t revoke those payments later.)

By utilizing publicly available information, you can find out a lot about companies that you may do business with. Conduct a full featured feature, and try to always seek out vendors and companies as alternatives who do have verified quality assurances – most markets have a lot of competitors, so you have every right to find other solutions that are more credible.