How to do an extensive check on an online vendor (such as gold selling websites)

[DrLecter]

How to do an extensive check on an online seller:

Help yourself from being scammed by doing a quick and easy check of an online seller.
For this example I will use “IGE.”

Their website: www.ige.com

The first thing you'll want to do is go to their website.
Is it professional looking?

Has it got correct spelling and grammar?

Are the links working? - Some gold selling websites have a “Bizrate” banner somewhere, usually to the left or right, or down on the footer of the page, hover over it and see if it goes to a proper bizrate review page.

On IGE's website we can see there is one down the bottom. It goes to a Shopzilla rating website, which isn't Bizrate but still has reviews, we can see their review stats on that page.
Has it got an SSL? SSL protects your information from being stolen when entering it into a website, most shopping websites have a SSL for the ordering part, when ordering make sure before you put any personal data such as user-names, passwords, emails and credit card numbers, the address bar has a https:// infront of it. Down the bottom of the website there is a Verisign logo, clicking on it shows that it does have an SSL and it is valid.

Contact information: I prefer websites list a phone number and an address on the website, some may be happier with less, on the contact page there is a list of emails and a live help button so no phone number is clearly pointed out.

More extensive checks:

WHOIS look up: whois.sc/websitehere.domain – make sure it has valid information and isn't hidden via whoisprotect or domainsbyproxy we can see here that it has a PO box address and the domain was registered in 1995 – if these guys were scammers they wouldn't have been around this long. The IP location is in Hong Kong. So they aren't an American company. There is no definite IGE contact address though.

Review Websites:

Check for IGE on the following list of websites:
Siteadvisor.com
Trustlink.org
Complaintsboard.com
Gamerates.com
Warcraftgoldreviews.com
WoWGoldFacts.com
Last but not least, a good Google can help.

Finally, you can always search on MarkeeDragon or MMOwned for any user reviews by members of the respective forums.

I've only outlined some of the process I go through, and below there is some more things you can look out for:

Paypal – are they verified? Is their address verified? Have I got full buyer protection?

About Us Page – does it match up? Are they telling the truth? It's pretty easy to tell if they aren't.
Customer Support – do they answer your questions fully? How is their response time?
Prices – Is it similar to other popular vendor websites? You don't want to get ripped off, but if the prices are too good to be true – it most likely IS too good to be true.

Awards – usually award medals and such go to a page on the website that gave the reward, make sure they aren't “claiming” to get the reward but have actually got the award from the website that gave it.

If I find anything else to add, I will be sure to add it.

Thanks for reading!

[rawflstomp]

nice man +rep

[anthony1981]

Nice guide have +rep from me

[EcHoEs]

Nice and well written guide +4

[DrLecter]

Thanks for the kind words guys.