Category: How To

How to Report a Bad Website

It can be very simple and quick for people to create websites – good websites and bad websites.

What can you do if you encounter a bad website?

Bad in this case doesn’t mean something you don’t like but a website that is a scam or misleading or steals your personal information or is a copy of someone else’s website etc.

You can report the bad website to the search engines, blacklists, review sites and the Authorities.

Search Engines

Google, Bing and the other search engines want to know about bad websites so they can direct traffic away from them and where relevant will report the sites to the Police or other Authority.

Report to Google https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_badware/?hl=en

Instructions for Bing  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/930167/how-to-report-a-phishing-web-site

To report a site Internet Explorer: If you are running IE and are still on the site in question, then  click on the Safety icon, which is on the toolbar go to “SmartScreen Filter” and select “Report unsafe website”.

Blacklists

Many organisations maintain lists of ‘bad’ websites called blacklists. This is to enable services such as Web of Trust, Trustwave, Brightcloud, numerous anti virus and anti malware companies such as McAfee, Sophos and many others to block access to those sites.

When you navigate to a blacklisted  listed website, your anti-virus or other software will warn you and stop the browser opening that site.  Which such software protection you choose is up to you but they all try to offer a good service.

PhishTank is a collaborative clearing house for data and information about phishing on the Internet. It maintains a blacklist used by software services. PhishTank allows developers to integrate anti-phishing data into their applications at no charge. https://www.phishtank.com/

Review Sites

There are various review websites that allow you to enter information, reviews, comments on websites and businesses – to help others make informed choices.

Which one you pick to report a bad website to depends on the nature of the website

e.g. for travel reviews – Trip Advisor

Some of the largest of these review sites are Consumer Report, Four Square, Better Business Bureau, Angie’s List and there are lots more.

The Authorities

You can report websites to Action Fraud if there is evidence of criminal activity.

You can report online scams and rip-offs to Trading Standards via the Citizen’s Advice Consumer Helpline on: 03454 04 05 06

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How to Maintain Privacy on Facebook

Social media is designed for you to share but you should take care to set the privacy levels so you know who can see your information and postings.

Basic Privacy Settings

In Facebook on a PC, click on the top right menu item and select Settings then Privacy and you should see as below.

You choose who can see your postings, profile etc. The choices are Public, Friends, Specific Friends or Only Me.

Set “Who Can Contact Me”. The choices are Everyone or just Friends and Friends of Friends

Set “Who Can Lookup Me Up” and whether you want search engines outside of Facebook to find your profile.

That’s all quite straightforward. Basically you decide if you want the world to see what you put on Facebook or restrict it to friends.

The Audience Selector Tool

When creating a new post on your timeline, there is a drop down box which allows you to determine the audience for the post. You can choose Public , Friends, Friends Except (you pick which friends to exclude), Specific Friends (you pick which Friends to include) or Only Me.

You’ll find an audience selector tool most places you share status updates, photos and other things you post. Click the tool and select who you want to share something with.

The selector tool remembers the audience you shared with the last time you posted something and uses the same audience when you share again unless you change it.

Profile

To set or modify your profile information, click the ‘Update Info button on bottom right of your header photo. You can then set a new header photo, profile photo, location, family and relationships, schools, professional skills etc.

Everyone can see this public information, which includes your name, profile picture, cover photo, gender, username, user ID, and networks.

To see what your profile looks like to other people, use the View As tool.

Timeline

Only you and your friends can post to your Timeline. When you make a post you can set the audience. When other people post on your Timeline, you can control who sees it by choosing the audience of the Who can see what others post on your Timeline setting.

As you edit your info, you can control who sees what by using the audience selector.

Privacy Check

Facebook lets you make a quick health check on privacy settings. Click on the question mark (or maybe a padlock symbol) on top right and select Privacy Check.

1) Posts – As explained below, this will explain how to control your privacy settings for every post.

2) Apps – Who sees your activity within APPS from outside suppliers

3) Profile – How much personal information is to be shown

Use Facebook wisely and don’t give any information to people without considering the possible consequences first.

Do enter your email address and click on the subscribe button on top right to keep up to date with new posts.

Resolve Your Complaint Expertly

https://www.resolver.co.uk/

Resolver is a website designed to make it easy for people to complain and it’s free to use. Resolver say their goal is to help make complaining quick and straightforward.

Resolver also works with MoneySavingExpert.com which is the UK’s biggest consumer advice website.

For some years there have been complaint templates available on the Internet and these make life easier for making a complaint.  But Resolver has taken the next step and automated the process online.

Resolver was started by James Walker, after his energy company ignored a complaint of his. James realised that complaining was complex and hard work and that there was no service that proactively helped consumers resolve their issues.

Resolver say “For the past decade we’ve used template letters to help – over 10m have been downloaded just on our PPI and bank charges reclaiming campaigns alone. The free technology Resolver provides can take this a leap further: automating the process, including drafting the letter, sending it, monitoring replies and then escalating it to an Ombudsman or key complaint body if it’s not sorted”.

Resolver tries to guide and support you throughout the complaint process. The system makes recommendations on next steps and when to take them, helps you keep track of your complaint and enables you to store all relevant information securely in one place.

Resolver was not set up to attack businesses or give them a hard time but to streamline the whole complaints process and reputable companies prefer this approach and work with Resolver.  They now work with tens of thousands of companies.

To use Resolver, you select the company you wish to complain to. If it’s on their list then you are presented with information about the company, their rules on complaint procedure and any other relevant information. Then you start your ‘case’ which means to entre all of the relevant information and it is sent to the company concerned.

Resolver keeps tracking of your case and any progress or fresh messages.  This is a very useful service.

If you have a complaint to make – Resolver.co.uk is a good place to start.

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Be a Scamsmart Investor

There are many scams that operate by cold calling or emailing people about a fantastic new investment opportunity – usually only available to a few people and you must decide NOW or it will be too late.

These can be very lucrative scams as potentially a lot of money is involved. But they can be devastating to the people caught out who may lose their nest egg, savings or pension.

How to Avoid These Scams

  1. If you are cold called about an investment opportunity – end the call straightaway. Reputable organisations do not cold call in this manner.
  2. If you are called and the person claims to have spoken with you before or to be calling about a brochure or email they sent to you – just end the call (unless of course you do have the brochure and are interested)

Investment fraud is often sophisticated, well organised  and difficult to spot. Fraudsters can be highly educated  and seem financially knowledgeable. They may have credible websites, testimonials and materials that can be hard to distinguish from the real thing.

However, if you are interested in an investment opportunity, then you need to check on the company and the offer thoroughly.

How to Check a Company

Step 1: Check if a firm is authorised or registered at  https://register.fca.org.uk/

Check the Register to see whether a firm or individual is authorised by us or registered. You should access the Register from our website, rather than through links in emails or on the website of a firm offering you an investment. Also check the address of our website is correct and there are not subtle changes that mean it is a fake.

To confirm the identity of an authorised firm on the Register, ask for their ‘firm reference number’ (FRN) and contact details, but always call them back on the switchboard number given on the Register rather than a direct line they might give you.

If you deal with an unauthorised firm you will not be covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service (link is external) or Financial Services Compensation Scheme (link is external) (FSCS) if things go wrong.

Step 2: Check the FCA Warning List at https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/unauthorised-firms-individuals

Firms and individuals can only conduct regulated financial services activities in the UK if they are authorised by the FCA or registered to do so, or are otherwise exempt.

Step 3: Genuine Names

Beware of fraudsters pretending to be from a firm authorised by us, as it could be a ‘cloned firm’. These scammers often claim to be from overseas firms that appear on the Register as these firms do not always have their full contact and website details listed.

Step 4: Check the Company’s website, look for testimonials and reviews on independent websites, companies house records etc.

Step 5: Ideally get independent financial advice.

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How to Buy Fake Website Traffic

Website owners are always keen to know how much traffic their site gets i.e. how many people visit the site, which pages they read etc.

We all know that some of the ‘traffic’ on the Internet is fake, but most website owners hope it is a small percentage of the real traffic.  However, some companies in the field of advertising believe that up to 50% of traffic achieved through advertising  could be fake.

In this context ‘fake’ means it’s not a person looking at your website – it’s another  computer.

This is the reason why so many websites these days insist you answer a Capcha query to prove you are a human being.

Suppose you have a new website and you believe the content is worth sharing. You want to get a lot of people to view your website. How do you go about this?

The starting point is to tell everyone you know, use social media to advertise your website content, tell anyone in the industry that you know and ask everyone to spread the word about your website.

Then if you need more traffic i.e. people looking at your website – you might consider paying for traffic – from Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. This is good traffic (i.e. real people viewing your adverts) but it does cost.

If you can’t get (or afford) the traffic you want then you may look at the cheaper traffic providers.

Cheap Traffic

How do cheaper suppliers get traffic for your site – there’s lots of ways e.g. clickbait, spam messages, posting fake comments on popular blogs or forums, fake adverts, advert marketplaces, fake SEO, traffic exchanges, etc.

Clickbait is such a source that is increasingly used on popular news aggregator and entertainment  websites.  You will see mini ads with labels such as “10 things you didn’t know about Scarlett Johannsen” or “See what happened to these child stars”. When someone clicks on the ad they don’t get what they expected but are directed to a website where the owner has paid to get more people viewing their site.

Clickbait is annoying but harmless. More of a problem are “bots”. This means pieces of software that mimic people in viewing websites and clicking on links.

Using these techniques, your website may get lots of traffic but it could be largely other computers and is very unlikely to be people wanting to do business with you.

How Can You Identify Fake Traffic?

This is a complicated matter and needs expertise, but you would start by examining the statistics/analytics for the website :-

A very high Bounce Rate can indicate disinterested visitors or bots.

A very low Pages/Session figure can mean people attracted to the site are only interested in one link then they leave. If combined with a very short average length of visit can mean automated viewing not people.

If you don’t go down the route of buying cheap traffic then you shouldn’t normally have to worry about fake traffic.

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How to Find Trustworthy Local Tradesmen

Most homeowners have faced the problem of needing a tradesman – e.g. a plumber, carpenter, decorator etc.

How do you make sure the person or company you choose is going to be trustworthy and do a good job.?

That’s not easy.

In the last few years various websites have appeared that include ratings on the tradesmen and these are very useful but the ratings are typically based on customer experience rather than an expert assessment.

TrustMark is a Government endorsed scheme for trades in and around the home. They award registered firms with accreditation after vetting and on-site inspections to ensure the firm is raising industry standards and this accreditation gives customers reassurance of quality and protection from rogue traders.

TrustMark is a ‘not for profit’ social enterprise and the TrustMark Scheme was developed in 2005, in conjunction with Government, industry and consumer protection bodies.

TrustMark says it seeks to continually improve and welcomes constructive engagement on how improvements and enhancements can be achieved.

The Website

www.trustmark.org.uk

The site is free to use and designed for you to find tradesmen based on entering a postcode and selecting a trade.

Or alternatively to find information on a specific tradesman /company

There are a lot of registered tradesmen on Trustmark but not everyone of course  – it does cost time and money to be registered so not all tradesmen have done so.

So, you can use Trustmark to reduce the likelihood of problems with your chosen tradesman.

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