Scam website checker — is this site safe, legit, or a scam?

How to check if a website is legit (30 seconds)

1. Copy the website address. Long-press the link in your messenger, SMS, or email and pick 'Copy'. Never tap the link itself before checking it.
2. Paste it into the checker. Paste the URL into the input box at the top of this page. It accepts bare domains (example.com), full URLs, and shortened links (bit.ly, t.co).
3. Wait 5 seconds for the verdict. The checker normalizes the host, expands any shortener, and looks the domain up against 12,000+ scam entries, community reports, domain age, and SSL records.
4. Read the trust score and reasons. You'll see a 0-100 trust score, a one-line verdict (safe, suspicious, scam), and the exact signals that drove the score. Under 40 means do not interact.
5. Act on the verdict. If suspicious or worse: don't enter anything, close the tab, and report it. If you already entered credentials or sent money, follow the panic guide for the 15-minute recovery checklist.

Examples of scam websites the checker has caught

A sample of patterns from the GACS database — names changed, the patterns are real:

• Fake exchange clones — domains like binance-claim[.]live or coinbase-support[.]help. Registered < 30 days, identical logo, "claim your airdrop" CTA wired to a wallet drainer.
• Recovery scam sites — pages targeting people who already lost crypto. Search ads for "recover stolen USDT" → site asks for 10% upfront, vanishes after payment.
• Fake parcel / delivery — SMS link to dhl-redelivery[.]top. Steals card details under the guise of a $2 redelivery fee.
• Romance & pig-butchering platforms — fake "trading apps" that show fabricated profits and lock withdrawals behind a "tax" payment.
• Tech-support pop-ups — browser overlays claiming "Your PC is infected" with a fake Microsoft phone number. Often hosted on free dynamic-DNS subdomains.

Website checker vs Google Safe Browsing vs WHOIS lookup

GACS vs ScamAdviser vs URLVoid — how the scam website checkers compare

ScamAdviser, URLVoid, and GACS all return a verdict for a pasted URL. The differences are in what data they check, how freshit is, and whether they cover the crypto-specific scams that dominate 2026's threat landscape.

Use the one that fits the threat: ScamAdviser shines on e-commerce fraud, URLVoid for aggregated blocklist coverage, GACS for fresh crypto-era scams and community speed.

For the full, side-by-side breakdown see GACS vs ScamAdviser. Comparing GACS to the paid B2B IP-fraud APIs instead? See GACS vs Scamalytics, GACS vs IPQualityScore, GACS vs MaxMind, or the full comparison index.

Verify website authenticity in 5 seconds

To verify website authenticity you need four signals at once: who registered the domain and when, whether the SSL certificate is real and matches the brand, whether the visible content matches the brand it claims to be, and whether anyone has reported the site as fake. GACS runs all four in a single pass and returns a one-line verdict plus the exact signals that drove it.

• Domain authenticity — WHOIS records, registrar reputation, age in days, and whether the registrant matches the claimed brand.
• SSL authenticity — certificate issuer, validity window, and whether the cert was issued in the last 7 days for a suspicious subdomain.
• Content authenticity — AI compares the page text and visuals against the genuine brand to flag clones, logo theft, and lookalike layouts.
• Reputational authenticity — checks the URL against 12,000+ confirmed scam entries and community reports filed in the last 24 hours.

A site that fails any one signal is suspicious. A site that fails two is almost certainly fake — close the tab and report it.

Free link checker for scam URLs (SMS, WhatsApp, Telegram, email)

Most scam links don't arrive in your browser — they arrive in a messenger. Shortened links (bit.ly, t.co,tinyurl, cutt.ly) hide the real destination, and SMS / WhatsApp / Telegram messages strip the usual visual cues that something is off. The GACS link checker expands every shortener, follows redirects, and checks the final destination against the same blacklist and AI signals as a full website check.

• Long-press the suspicious link in your messenger, pick Copy — never tap.
• Paste it into the checker. Shorteners are expanded; the final URL is what gets graded.
• The verdict tells you the destination, the domain age, and whether the link is part of a known scam campaign (parcel scam, recovery scam, fake exchange, etc.).

Over 60% of pig-butchering, parcel-delivery, and crypto-recovery scams begin with a single messenger link. Checking it before you tap is the highest-leverage 5 seconds you can spend.

Check website reputation across 12,000+ scam reports

A website's reputation is the sum of what real users, security researchers, and automated scanners have said about it over time. The GACS reputation check pulls from four pools at once and condenses them into a 0–100 trust score with the exact reasons exposed.

• Community reports — 12,000+ confirmed scam entries plus reports filed in the last 24 hours by users in 50+ countries.
• Domain history — registration date, prior owners, hosting changes, and any reputational baggage from previous use.
• Technical fingerprint — SSL issuer, redirect chain, brand-similarity score, and whether the site loads wallet-drainer or credential-harvesting scripts.
• Loss data — total reported losses tied to the domain, so you can weigh "100 reports, $5 losses" very differently from "3 reports, $80,000 losses".

Trust score under 40 means "do not interact". Under 20 means almost certainly a scam. Over 80 means the site has a verified track record with no open reports.

When to use a website checker

• Before clicking any link from SMS, WhatsApp, Telegram, or email
• Before connecting a wallet to any new dApp or "airdrop" page
• Before entering payment details on a store you haven't used before
• Before sending money to a "broker", "recovery agent", or investment platform
• If a friend or relative is about to act on an unsolicited offer