I Investigated 50 Suspicious Websites.
Here's What Separated the Scams from the Real Ones.

Over the past two months I've personally checked 50 websites that people weren't sure about. Suppliers from Alibaba. Instagram stores. Job offer companies. Investment platforms. Freelancer websites.

31 were scams. 11 were legitimate. 8 were "proceed carefully."

Here's what I found.

The pattern that appeared in almost every scam

Every single confirmed scam site shared at least 3 of these 5 characteristics:

1. Domain registered within the last 90 days
2. No verifiable business registration in any country
3. Team photos that reverse image search to stock photo libraries
4. Either zero independent reviews or reviews that are clearly fabricated
5. Contact information that either doesn't work or routes to a generic call centre

The scams that nearly fooled me had 4 of 5. The most sophisticated ones had all 5 — but had invested in making each one harder to spot.

The new challenge: AI-generated websites

The most alarming finding: 14 of the 31 scam sites had no obvious visual red flags. No typos. No broken English. No stretched logos. Professional photography, real-looking testimonials, polished copy.

AI tools have eliminated the traditional visual red flags. You cannot trust how a site looks anymore. You have to check the data.

The two checks that never failed

Out of everything I tried, two checks were conclusive every single time:

Domain age: Every confirmed scam was under 8 months old. The oldest was 7 months. Most were under 90 days. Not one scam had a domain older than a year.

Scam database cross-reference: Every confirmed scam appeared on at least one scam database. Most appeared on two or more. The databases don't always catch sites immediately — but for any site that's been operating more than a few weeks, they're remarkably accurate.

The most expensive case I saw

Someone had wired £2,400 to a "supplier" they found through Instagram DM. The company's website was 19 days old. I checked it in 90 seconds.

The money was gone. The "supplier" had disappeared.

$7 would have saved £2,400.

What I do now before trusting any new website

1. Check domain age at whois.domaintools.com — free, 30 seconds
2. Run through ScamAdviser.com — free, 60 seconds
3. Search Reddit: "[company name] scam" or "[company name] legit"
4. Reverse image search one team photo

If anything fails those 4 checks — stop. Don't proceed.