How To Check If A Crypto Website Is Legit

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The internet is awash with scams and it’s easy to fall into the trap of parting with your cash after being promised huge rewards in return.

The crypto sector is no different. Each day dozens of new fake platforms, exchanges, tokens and recovery services spring up ready to snare unsuspecting investors.

Fortunately, there are also a growing number of tools at your disposal which can help you to avoid the scams. I use these tools on an almost daily basis and from my experience they are an excellent way to get at an idea about whether a platform is genuine or not.

These, combined with a series of other steps you can take, can help keep you safe from the scammers and avoid losing your hard-earned money.

Related post: How to spot a crypto scam

Google it

Typing the name of a platform and putting it into a search engine like Google has got to be one of the easiest ways to find out if a crypto website is a scam.

It’s highly likely that someone will have written about it already on a review website or platform like Reddit.

Sometimes simply putting the name of the platform followed by ‘review’ or ‘reddit’ will bring up a quick answer to whether a platform is legit or not.

This can often be the quickest and most reliable way to establish whether a crypto site or token is real or not.

However, a word of caution. If it’s a very new platform, it might not be listed on any of the scam reporting sites yet and people may not have written any reviews so it’s not completely failsafe.

Fortunately, there are number of other steps you can take to check the legitimacy of a website.

Domain lookup

One thing that is often a telltale sign of a fake site is the age of the domain.

As I’ve already mentioned, scammers are setting up new sites every day which they run for a couple of months before shutting them down.

Carrying out a simple check to establish when the URL was registered can often give you a good steer as to whether a site is genuine or not.

There are many free websites out there that will allow you to do this.

There are lots of other websites offering this service so find the one you prefer.

Of course, a new domain name is not a definitive sign that a site is a scam but it’s a very good indicator.

This is especially true if the platform also makes claims about being around for years and having tens of thousands of clients.

If the domain was only registered a couple of months ago, you know this can’t be true.

Security tools

There are number of free tools on offer than can help you check the validity of a website.

One of the most popular tools is a website scam checker which will give you a quick overview of whether it’s safe to use or not.

They examine a number of factors including site age, IP address and where the domain was registered.

It’s important to ensure you’re using a genuine scam checker as fraudsters have been known to set up their own review sites to give their websites the false appearance of legitimacy.

Contact details and addresses

All legitimate investing platforms, whether in the crypto sector or not, contain details about how to contact them and where they’re based.

On scam websites you’ll often find a single contact email and this might be a Gmail address or similar. This a sure sign the platform is fake.

Similarly, fake platforms often omit any details about where they’re located which tells you straight away that something isn’t right.

However, some scam platforms do list what appears to be a genuine address under their contact information.

If you’re unsure about a platform you should always check out any addresses given and, again, the internet is your friend.

I’ve known scammers to list restaurants, private flats and even shopping centres as their HQs so make sure you check this before proceeding with any arrangement.

Look and feel

Because scammers are setting up these fake crypto platforms en masse they often use ‘cookie cutter’ designs and cut and paste the same text onto the pages.

This means that they can appear extremely amateurish in design and the wording can contain spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.

You may find some of the images are pixelated and that photos purportedly showing team members are either AI generated or scraped from other sites on the internet.

In terms of content, the fraudsters often pay little attention to the internal pages, so click around the site to see what else it contains.

If the links are broken, or there’s no information of substance about the platform then leave straight away.

Domain spelling

On the subject of domains, scammers often use names that are similar to those of legitimate crypto platforms in the hope of tricking investors.

Always double check the spelling of the URL to make sure that a letter hasn’t been missed out or swapped around.

Any typos are a huge red flag and you should leave the platform straight away.

However, some scammers go to much greater lengths to create professional looking sites and these are harder to spot especially for people who aren’t familiar with investing platforms.

Guaranteed returns and unrealistic claims

Scammers often lure people in with the promise of huge profits over a short period of time.

But, as we all know, if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is!

And this is never truer with crypto scams. While there have been cases where people have made millions in the space of a few days with crypto, they’re few and far between.

Crypto is a high-risk investment and often the people making the big profits are those who trade full time and spend hours each day pouring over charts and carry out in-depth technical analysis.

Even then, they often get it wrong.

If anyone promises you guaranteed returns, walk away. There’s no such thing in investing.

Also, if a platform contains unrealistic claims about customer successes or percentage returns, it’s highly likely that it’s a scam operation.

Connected WhatsApp groups

Crypto fraudsters often run their operations alongside a WhatsApp group which appears to show other like-minded investors enjoying success.

But the scammers populate these groups with bots and other members of their group to help convince people to invest.

It’s easy to be lured into this, especially if you think other people are making money when you’re not.

But you need to be aware of this tactic, especially if you’ve been invited to the group by someone you’ve met online and don’t know in real life.

No regulation

The cryptosphere is often described as being like the wild west, but things are changing and the sector is becoming increasingly more regulated as time goes by.

If a platform or exchange you’re planning to use doesn’t have any form of regulation then it may well be a scam entity.

Scams can be extremely difficult to spot and the checklist above will not root out every fake platform. If you’d like help with a platform you’re concerned about get in touch with The Crypto Adviser team today.

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