Top Four Ways to Spot Fake Websites

In the fast-paced world of finance, online security is essential. As part of PSECU’s ongoing commitment to cybersecurity, one of our goals is to empower you to recognize and report suspicious websites and URLs.

It’s common for cybercriminals to create websites that, at first glance, seem part of a legitimate company but end up redirecting you to a dangerous website. These website addresses – or URLs – are typically created with misspellings in their name or contain tricks to mislead you.

These scam sites are found in pop-ups, social media ads, phishing emails, and text messages. They may even appear in search engine results for common or popular search terms.

Here are our top four ways to spot these fake websites:

1. Read the URL carefully and check for spelling.

Is the website or URL spelled correctly? One key indicator of a fake site is a misspelled address or URL. Fraudsters can take a familiar URL like amazon.com and use amaz0n.com or amazon.org to trick you. They can also use hyphens to create google-search.com in place of google.com. Even though these URLs look similar, they won’t take you to the same website.

2. Be suspicious of websites that look too good to be true.

Is a website offering you a product or service at an unheard-of price? Or is it promising you a huge return on investment and asking for sensitive personal information? Be suspicious if you see signs like these. If a website’s offer looks too good to be true, it probably is, and you shouldn’t trust it.

3. Look for the HTTPS lock.

Secure websites display HTTPS instead of HTTP in the URL. Look for the padlock icon next to the URL in your browser or check if the URL starts with “https://” instead of “http://”. The presence of “https://” indicates that the website has an SSL certificate and the connection is secure, which means that it is more likely to be trustworthy.

URL shortening services, such as Bit.ly and TinyURL, are commonly used to shorten long URLs. Scammers use these services to hide the true destination of a URL, making it difficult to identify a website’s authenticity. The addresses will usually start with either http://bit.ly/ or http://tinyurl.com/ and could lead to a legitimate looking but fraudulent website.

If you ever need to check shortened URLs like these, you can use a URL checker like Unshorten.It! to find out if the link is sending you to a site you can trust.

Do Your Part to Report Fake Websites

If you do come across a fake website, here are the steps you can take to help shut it down:

• Submit a complaint to the FTC at ftc.gov.
• File a report with the authorities. You can file a police report with your local law enforcement office. A police report may be required by your bank for some fraud claims. You can also submit a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.
• Report the scam website to Google. You can do this for both phishing websites and malicious software.

If you find a site pretending to be PSECU, please report it to abuse@psecu.com. Our team can analyze and take action against it. And if you entered your PSECU account information and/or personally identifiable information (PII) into a website pretending to be PSECU, call us to get assistance with protecting your account.

Protect Your Personal and Financial Information with PSECU

Scammers are always coming up with new ways to trick you out of your money. With PSECU, you can be assured that we take steps to protect your personal and financial information and provide you with tips to keep you safe. Check out the Fraud section of our Resource Center for more tips.