Test Your Knowledge of Online Scams

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Are you up to date on today’s scams? McAfee's SiteAdvisor service has created a ten question test to see whether you can spot fake websites that try to steal passwords and other personal information.

In eight questions, you are presented with two Web sites or e-mail messages and are asked to identify the authentic one. The final two questions test your general knowledge about scams.
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It's hard if you have never been to the site before. They took actual screenshots of the sites, so if you have an account there, you should know what the legitimate one looks like.
 
I found it ironic that I had to click on a TinyURL to take this quiz...

8/10

I missed the MySpace :rolleyes: and Paypal, both of which I don't use. Engrish is your make friend very much.
 
10/10

Hardest ones were Chase and Capital One. However I got Capital one because I have an accoutn with them and know what the page looks like.
 
Wasn't that hard. Favicons were helpful. All you really need is the Spoofstick add-on for Firefox, or something similar. I stopped using it when it became incompatible, and I haven't checked to see if it's been updated yet.
 
9/10

Don't have a capital one account and it asked for my social.
 
9/10 I missed the AOL one, in my defence I have never used AOL and I wont start now :D
 
Baredor said:
I found it ironic that I had to click on a TinyURL to take this quiz...
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I too found it funny how they used a tinyurl link to go to take a test about ensuring you are going to the correct site on the internet.


I got a 8/10

I missed the Bank of America one and Amazon since I never use either one.
 
Judging by the width of the content column, I'm not surprised there was a tinyurl.
 
9/10 I missed the Chase one. I was getting bored and didn't pay attention to the grammar.

But seriously, you look at the URL's of the site and you can tell right off.
 
I found it stupid that they stopped giving you URL's. That is the FIRST thing I always check. I also never click links in from emails unless I knew it was coming shortly (like I just created an account, etc). I got 10/10..but that was because I was hunting for the flaws.
 
I got 8/10, but I think the test is absurd.

I have never been to many of those sites. Why would anyone be fooled into supplying information like that on a site for which they don't have an account? The fact that someone can't verify that a Chase or Amazon or Paypal site isn't authentic, doesn't mean SQUAT if they don't have an account there in the first place.

For the test to be worthwhile, it would have to show each of use the real and fake versions of sites WE ACTUALLY USE.
 
You'd be surprised how gullible people are. Spam and scams continue because people continue to fall for them.
 
Trepidati0n said:
Why didn't they just do

Code: 
<a href="go here you silly baffon">Click Here for the Quiz</a>
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'Cause they are probably using some sort of WYSIWYG editor to post those articles which doesn't give them this type of control.
 
8/10 but i'm french canadian so I didn't always look for akward wordings and I never used most of the sites :rolleyes: considering this, it's pretty good :)
 
Trepidati0n said:
I found it stupid that they stopped giving you URL's. That is the FIRST thing I always check. I also never click links in from emails unless I knew it was coming shortly (like I just created an account, etc). I got 10/10..but that was because I was hunting for the flaws.
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+1. Yes, we all should know that scammers are very good at making pages that look ALMOST the same as the actual page. But there is no way that I'm going to pick through every page looking for grammar errors as proof that it's legit... check the damn URL before you enter personal information!
 
Spazilton said:
10/10

Hardest ones were Chase and Capital One. However I got Capital one because I have an accoutn with them and know what the page looks like.
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Actually I think they are wrong about the Chase one. I've emailed Steve my findings for a follow up and I made a complaint about it to siteadvisor.

If you go to chase.com (we agree that thats the correct site right?)
Click Mortgage under Personal Lending, On the next page click Online mortgage application under Apply Online and you'll arrive at the page they marked wrong, at least for me. Did you also notice that the to example pages were on different steps of the process?

If I am right it just means you need to be careful about all informaton.
 
I got 7/10 myself as I didn't have a lot of time to scan through every one looking for every flaw. I don't do online banking, myspace (have one but rarely look at it), not a paypal fan since I got screwed by them (another story) and check the URL first thing which they didn't give for every site link.

I know about the security certificate spoofing and of course the email phishing scams etc. I should let my fiance take this test since she insists on buying lots of things online, online banking etc.

Hell I barely use my credit card online due to so much identity theft, call me paranoid or w/e but I really don't need or want the trouble of getting new cc's, accounts credited back etc.

I buy stuff from a few sites, newegg, amazon and that's about it for me. I mainly use the internet for news, email, research and games from time to time.

Not a bad test for most of the general public though, but 90+% here will pass on avg of 7/10 or higher I'm sure. ;)
 
bigstusexy said:
Actually I think they are wrong about the Chase one. I've emailed Steve my findings for a follow up and I made a complaint about it to siteadvisor.

If you go to chase.com (we agree that thats the correct site right?)
Click Mortgage under Personal Lending, On the next page click Online mortgage application under Apply Online and you'll arrive at the page they marked wrong, at least for me. Did you also notice that the to example pages were on different steps of the process?

If I am right it just means you need to be careful about all informaton.
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Yeah, I noticed something wierd about that too. Their "good" page asks for a SSN. 9/10 otherwise.
 
9 out of 10. The Chase site fooled me (I didn't think the phrasing was as awkward as they claimed), but the rest were pretty obvious.
 
Dangit, can't edit again.

The fact that the legit Chase site also asks for an SSN like others mentioned makes me doubt its authenticity. Sites rarely ask for SSN's anymore, and I'd never give one out, even to a site I know is legit, as opposed to calling their customer service or stopping by.
 
LoneWolf said:
Dangit, can't edit again.

The fact that the legit Chase site also asks for an SSN like others mentioned makes me doubt its authenticity. \.
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jaegertech said:
Yeah, I noticed something wierd about that too. Their "good" page asks for a SSN. 9/10 otherwise.
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if you look at the table to the right on the good site you'll notice that you are in the middle of enterint data, after loggin in, that page is all the info needed for a credit check BUT it would imply that you have already established a secure relationship with the site by entering a username a password. It would be the beginning of an elaborate fishing scheme.
 
don't feel bad about #10, it's a trick question designed specifically to leave you with doubt, same as #1 but with no right/wrong answer. other than that the rest are worthless, especially because of the reasoning behind their explainations. bad grammar? the ones that _do_ work are going to be flawless replicas right down to the logo headers and linking. if they were serious about informing people of the real risks they would have focused more on urls/domains and information standards. they would have mentioned how legit sites will never request that kind of information outside of a superficial login first. ss# is an exception, an outdated example and obviously bad practice which is why banks have changed formats long ago.

the one time they do mention domains they pick the most asinine pointless example, just what myspace is good for. "This site tries to trick users by using an authentic-looking sub-domain that is similar to the real myspace domain." perfect fud since real banks actually do use authentic subdomains to handle login and account access.

so what we must do?? of course to buy McAfee!! It is all about your security.
 
I was just looking for main points didnt bother to read the sites, so im assuming if these scammers had perfect writting skills, we would all be screwed. i got 6/10 most of the time the links on top give it away and usually after you visit the site a couple of times you know what you look for if its fake or not , paypal usually is the one that is always trying to get phish.
 
9/10


I missed the email scam question...:rolleyes: I don't see spam emails too often (that crap gets filtered out) so I'm not surprised I missed that one. But then again, that's a scam I knew about and should have realized it when I answered the question.
 
provoko said:
6 out of 10. =( Don't phish me please. Haha.
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Dear Sir Madam:
I am a son of the wealthy mine-owner in South Africa. <snip> In return he will pay you very nice in diamonds- please hurry!

8/10- missed Chase and SSL.
 
9/10. Why the hell would a website require your SSN just to send your password to your registered email address? I get the impression that financial institutions just don't give a crap about identity theft.
 
9/10

I missed the Chase one. I was concentrating more on what they were asking for, instead of the grammer.
 
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