New easy-to-use online tool launched to help people check if a website is scam or legit

News and Info from Deeside, Flintshire, North Wales

This article is old - Published: Tuesday, Jul 5th, 2022

A new easy-to-use online tool has been launched to help people avoid online fraud by determining whether a website is likely to be legitimate or a scam.

Get Safe Online has partnered with Cifas, the UK’s leading fraud prevention service, to launch ‘Check-a-Website’.

An innovative new feature, hosted on www.getsafeonline.org that invites users to check if a website is safe to use before accessing.

It is expected to prevent thousands of people in the UK falling victim to unwanted online scams every year.

Criminals are increasingly turning to the internet to target victims, with malicious and spoofed websites becoming increasingly sophisticated.

These websites are designed to steal the financial and personal details of users – which are often used to facilitate identity theft.

The latest data from Cifas has revealed that there was a 43% increase in cases involving identity fraud filed to the National Fraud Database in Q1 2022 when compared to the same period last year, with 9 in 10 instances of identity fraud taking place online.

Check a website is an easy-to-use online tool which helps determine whether a website is likely to be legitimate or a scam … before you visit it.

Users simply type in the address of the website they want to check, and their results will appear within seconds.

Provided in the UK by Get Safe Online, in conjunction with Cifas, ScamAdviser, Barclays and other partners, it cleverly uses an algorithm to provide a trust score based on more than 40 data sources as well as thousands of reports of malicious websites from law enforcement agencies, regulators and consumer brands every week.

Tony Neate, CEO of Get Safe Online, comments: “For over 15 years Get Safe Online has been providing online safety advice and tips for individuals and small businesses to ensure all of us can use the internet safely and with confidence.”

“The internet is amazing, but as with so many things, there are downfalls to look out for when using it – scams, fraud, people trying to exploit you and your personal information.”

“Launching Check a Website today is revolutionary and we are very excited to be able to finally offer individuals the opportunity to literally ‘check a website’ before they use it.”

“We are also hugely grateful to our partners who have helped to make it happen – now we just want to let as many people know about it as possible so the UK can benefit from this new capability and help improve the united fight against scammers.”

Rocio Concha, Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy, said: “The UK is in the grip of a fraud epidemic so any tools or advice that might prevent people from giving their financial and personal details to a scammer are welcome.

“A tool like this should help some consumers to do some research before clicking through to websites, but it doesn’t absolve tech firms of their responsibility to stop scams at source and of banks to reimburse innocent victims who lose money to sophisticated fraud tactics.”

“Consumers should remember that if a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is.”