How to Spot a Fake Brand Website Before You Buy This Black Friday

Why lookalike stores spike before Black Friday

Big sales mean lots of people searching for deals and clicking ads in a hurry. Consumer groups such as the BBB and security companies such as McAfee warn every holiday season that copycat shops use that rush: they borrow a brand's photos and logo, run ads or social posts, and send shoppers to a site that only looks like the real thing.

The good news is that a few habits catch most of them, and none of them take more than a minute.

7 quick checks before you pay

1. Read the address bar carefully. Look for extra words, hyphens or an unusual ending. A made-up example: a shop called Example Brand would normally live at example-brand.com, so a link to example-brand.shop or example-brand-sale.com deserves a second look.
2. Get the link from a source you trust. Use the website listed in the brand's verified Instagram bio, the brand's official store page on Amazon, or the Visit official site button on an Entrashop store page.
3. Be wary of extreme discounts and countdown timers. Prices that are far below everywhere else, or a timer that resets every time you reload, are common pressure tactics.
4. Check the contact, returns and shipping pages. A real store usually has clear policies, a way to reach support, and details that match what the brand says elsewhere.
5. Look at the payment options. Be careful if a store only takes bank transfers, gift cards or crypto; card and well-known wallet payments give you more ways to dispute a charge.
6. Look up the domain age. Free tools such as ICANN Lookup show when a domain was registered. A very new domain is only a signal, not proof, so weigh it with the other checks.
7. Search the brand name plus "official site" and compare. Make sure the result matches the domain on the brand's social profiles or its Entrashop store page.

Buying on Amazon or other marketplaces

If you shop on Amazon, look for the brand's own store page, usually reached from a "Visit the [Brand] Store" link under the product title. Many brands also link to their Amazon store from their own website.

Marketplaces have many sellers, and listings can change. When in doubt, compare the listing with what the brand's own site shows, and check the seller name and return policy before you pay.

What to do if you think you bought from a lookalike site

Contact your card issuer or payment provider as soon as you can and explain what happened; they can tell you about disputes and chargebacks. Keep screenshots of the site, the ad or post that led you there, your order confirmation and any emails.

In the US, you can report the site to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov and to the BBB Scam Tracker. If you reused a password on the site, change it anywhere else you use it.

Find official links on Entrashop

Entrashop is a directory of official brand links. We don't sell products. Each store page shows the brand's official site in an Official site box, and the Visit official site button takes you straight there.

You can browse by category, such as outdoor gear or beauty, or browse brands by country on our origins page.

Sources

• How we put this guide together: the checks above follow public consumer advice from the BBB, the FTC and McAfee, written in our own words. Official domains come from the store records in the Entrashop directory.
• https://www.bbb.org/scams/spot-a-scam/fake-websites
• https://www.mcafee.com/blogs/internet-security/holiday-shopping-scams-what-to-watch-as-black-friday-cyber-monday-approach/
• https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/

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