So you’re looking to save some money by buying prescription drugs online. Well good for you. But, there is a VERY high possibility that not only will you never receive your order, but you may also have your credit card maxed out in short order.
Since I would hate to see you get ripped off, lets see if we can arm you with a bit of info to help you spot the fake pharmaceutical sites.
Scammers can be slightly cleaver. VERY slightly! When visiting one of these fake pharmaceutical sites, at first glance it looks legit. But, if you take 10 seconds to really look at the page, you’ll see very quickly that it’s nothing more than a scam.
So just how can you tell if it’s fake? Well, lets take a look at one and see what clues we can find.
Red Flag #1 The URL:
If the website has a name like “We are Drugs” and the URL is something like petes cookie shop.com, there is a problem. A legitimate pharmaceutical website will have an address that is very close, or exactly the same as their business name.
Red Flag #2 The Security Badge:
Pharmaceutical sites will display some type of “Security Badge”. Like GeoTrust or McAfee Secure. These badges should be clickable and take you to their security certificate. Again, look at the URL. It should be the URL of the security company and not the address of the pharmaceutical site you’re on. It should also be a secure URL. Meaning it will have https and not http.
Red Flag #3 The menu:
Take a look at the sites menu. The links in the menu, in a lot of cases, will lead nowhere, or take you to the top of the page. This is because they don’t take the time to completely setup the site, they know the hosting provider will take down the site when the complaints start rolling in. Plus, one scammer may have as many as 30 sites setup.
Red Flag #4 The Contact Info:
One of the first things you want to do, is to take a peek at their About Us or Contact page. On either page you should find a physical address along with a phone number. To tell instantly if it’s fake, try to highlight the address. If it’s an image and not text, run! It is very common for scammers to use an image for the contact information, because the script will change the image every few days. And it also makes it impossible to copy and paste the information. Which is exactly what you want to do next.
Take the address and put it in Google maps. It should return results that match what the website says. The best one so far, was located at a scrap metal yard.
Red Flag #5 Payment Options:
Legitimate pharmaceutical websites will never, ever offer Western U. as a form of payment. If you see this, run as fast as you can, because I will guarantee you it is a scam. Now some fake sites will hide the payment options until you’ve placed items in the shopping cart and filled out your shipping address. They do this so even if you don’t complete the order, they at least have your email, name, address and phone number. Which they can then sell to other scammers. So if you have any doubt about the legitimacy of the site, do not use you real personal information.
That is just 5 of the many red flags that should alert you to a site being fake. There are many more, like phone numbers, shipping times, return policies, testimonials etc. But those 5 should give you a pretty good start to spotting and avoiding fake pharmaceutical websites.
Online Prescription Drugs – 5 Red Flags To Look Out For
So you’re looking to save some money by buying prescription drugs online. Well good for you. But, there is a VERY high possibility that not only will you never receive your order, but you may also have your credit card maxed out in short order.
Since I would hate to see you get ripped off, lets see if we can arm you with a bit of info to help you spot the fake pharmaceutical sites.
Scammers can be slightly cleaver. VERY slightly! When visiting one of these fake pharmaceutical sites, at first glance it looks legit. But, if you take 10 seconds to really look at the page, you’ll see very quickly that it’s nothing more than a scam.
So just how can you tell if it’s fake? Well, lets take a look at one and see what clues we can find.
Red Flag #1 The URL:
If the website has a name like “We are Drugs” and the URL is something like petes cookie shop.com, there is a problem. A legitimate pharmaceutical website will have an address that is very close, or exactly the same as their business name.
Red Flag #2 The Security Badge:
Pharmaceutical sites will display some type of “Security Badge”. Like GeoTrust or McAfee Secure. These badges should be clickable and take you to their security certificate. Again, look at the URL. It should be the URL of the security company and not the address of the pharmaceutical site you’re on. It should also be a secure URL. Meaning it will have https and not http.
Red Flag #3 The menu:
Take a look at the sites menu. The links in the menu, in a lot of cases, will lead nowhere, or take you to the top of the page. This is because they don’t take the time to completely setup the site, they know the hosting provider will take down the site when the complaints start rolling in. Plus, one scammer may have as many as 30 sites setup.
Red Flag #4 The Contact Info:
One of the first things you want to do, is to take a peek at their About Us or Contact page. On either page you should find a physical address along with a phone number. To tell instantly if it’s fake, try to highlight the address. If it’s an image and not text, run! It is very common for scammers to use an image for the contact information, because the script will change the image every few days. And it also makes it impossible to copy and paste the information. Which is exactly what you want to do next.
Take the address and put it in Google maps. It should return results that match what the website says. The best one so far, was located at a scrap metal yard.
Red Flag #5 Payment Options:
Legitimate pharmaceutical websites will never, ever offer Western U. as a form of payment. If you see this, run as fast as you can, because I will guarantee you it is a scam. Now some fake sites will hide the payment options until you’ve placed items in the shopping cart and filled out your shipping address. They do this so even if you don’t complete the order, they at least have your email, name, address and phone number. Which they can then sell to other scammers. So if you have any doubt about the legitimacy of the site, do not use you real personal information.
That is just 5 of the many red flags that should alert you to a site being fake. There are many more, like phone numbers, shipping times, return policies, testimonials etc. But those 5 should give you a pretty good start to spotting and avoiding fake pharmaceutical websites.
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