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Fake websites - what should I do?

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 1:51 am
by El Capitan Borracho
Ahoy!

I work with a few other scam fighting sites and do my best to assist the scammers by finding and shutting down their fraudulent websites.

As some/most/all of you may realize, often times even romance scammers will send websites to you. These sites can vary greatly, and please keep in mind that just because a scammer has sent you a site to look at or log in to, that doesn't necessarily mean the site is fraudulent. For example, Western Union is a legitimate business, and just because these criminals love to try and use it, doesn't make the company itself fraudulent in any way. Often times scammers will claim to be working with a bank or courier company, and the bank/courier sites they will send you will be the legitimate sites. Other times, they will send you important looking law firm or oil company sites (for example) for businesses that they claim to work for. These too can be legitimate sites.

On the off chance that a scammer does read this post, I'll refrain from posting a "How to tell if a website is fake or not" list at this time.

If you do think you have been given a fraudulent site by a scammer, you can check first to see if it's listed at the Artists Against 419 database of fraudulent websites. The link to the database (which is searchable) is here: http://db.aa419.org/fakebankslist.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If any of you who read this think they may have been given a fake site and aren't sure about it (and it's not listed in the AA419 database), you are welcome to send it to me via Private Message and I will take a look at it. If the site does prove to be fraudulent, I will do my best to have it shut down ASAP.

Thanks for your time, and best of luck with the romance scammers.

El Capitan