Anatomy of a scam site

Initially..

The Internet has its own share of scam sites. Their intention is to manipulate human emotions to the personal benefit of the web site owners. Websites focus to make the viewers stay longer. They use click baits for this purpose, where attractive and often misleading titles are used for otherwise an ordinary or boring article. Websites also wants to make the viewers subscribers. This is to ensure that the users will return. If there are free subscription plans, the focus will be to make the subscribers upgrade to a premium plan that would require a monthly fee.

If a networking site requires monthly fees just to connect to other users or even to read and reply to the incoming messages, it surely is a scam, in my opinion. These sites may employ fake profiles to lure men and women to register for their premium services. Scam sites display their advertisements over the other websites. They also often just comment on the forums with their links, hoping innocent guys will end up in their site, after reading the comment.

Recently, I was browsing an apparently scam web site full of ads and pop ups, which displayed a timer indicating I should buy the offer within 11 mins and 57 s to qualify for a 75% discount. After a few minutes, I just refreshed the page, which set the timer to 13 mins and 39 s again. Virtually, I was able to keep the limited 'discount' opportunity forever, by merely refreshing. I am sure, you may find that 'discount' almost everyday.

After a refresh

Some of the scam sites which claim to be free, require a credit card, just to 'verify' your age. However, once they got the credit card information, it won't cost them much effort, before they start charging you the first month usage fee. Most of these web sites accept the credit card without verifying. They verify only when they decide to scam your money. You may use a fake credit card number generator to see whether the site fails for it. Most of the scam sites indeed fail this simple test. Even the legit looking sites may have some scam elements in them. Just be careful when you use your credit card in the Internet.