How to Tell If a Website is a Scam

I'm almost convinced that somewhere there is a web-template called "scam site." It actually disappoints me to a certain degree that for the past 5 or 10 years the scammers haven't made any attempt to improve the appearance of the websites. In fact, a scam-site is so conspicuously designed that it may as well say, "Run away!!! This is a HUGE SCAM!!!"

Here are the dead giveaways:

Site Layout: Scam-sites are always a singe page, vertical scrolling site, with a single white column used to display text, pictures, and testimonials. I'm sure you're already picturing exactly what I'm talking about in your mind. You can always bet on at least one pop-up window for another offer that is conveniently almost identical to what the site is offering, and you can also expect some type of badly recorded audio-pitch playing in the background.

Testimonials: Testimonials are fake, fake, fake. I promise you, they are always fake. Think about it, if you bought the product the site is selling, and it worked, would you go back and offer to write a testimonial??? No, you'd be to busy counting your money and laughing. Many years ago, I worked for a company that actually encouraged the employees to write a testimonial on the site once in a while, whenever we had some free time.

Screen Shots: There will always be at least one or two screen shot of (but not limited to); a bank account, Paypal account, Adsense account, personal check, business check, etc... Notice how all of the information on these screen shots is blacked out except for the total dollar amount. I don't even want to get into how easy this is to do with Photoshop; although, I'm confident that most of the time they just use a stock photo, or take a picture of the first check they made from scamming people.