A Professional Website Proves Nothing on Its Own
A polished investment website can be built in a day from a template, with copied text, borrowed logos and invented testimonials. Design quality, live chat and a prominent regulator's logo are all available to anyone, and none of them is evidence of who operates the site.
What a fraudulent website cannot easily fake is its record: when the domain was registered, whether the official registers list the site, and whose bank account receives the money. Those are the details worth checking.
When Was the Domain Registered?
Every website address is registered, and the registration date is public. A domain lookup, such as lookup.icann.org, shows when the address was first created. A firm that claims decades of history while operating from a domain registered weeks ago has made two claims that cannot both be true.
Owner details are often withheld for privacy, which is common and not a warning sign by itself. The registration date is the detail that matters.
Match the Website to the Official Record
A regulated firm's website is listed on its entry in the FCA Register. Type the firm's name into register.fca.org.uk independently and compare the website recorded there, character by character, with the one in front of you. A single changed letter, an added word or a different ending such as .com in place of .co.uk is how a lookalike site is built.
A UK company must show its registered name and company number on its website. Search that number at Companies House and confirm it belongs to the same name, is active, and has a history consistent with what the website claims.
Test the Contact Details, Not the Design
An established firm writes from an email address on its own domain, so a message from a free webmail account, or from a domain that differs from the website, is a reason for caution. The telephone number should match the one on the official record, not only the one printed on the website.
An address in a recognised financial district reads as credibility. It is not evidence of legitimacy. The FCA warns that unauthorised firms often give addresses, numbers and emails that belong to other businesses, so the details must be checked against the record, not taken from the page.
The Decisive Test Is the Bank Account
Before any payment, the bank's Confirmation of Payee check shows whether the account name matches the firm you believe you are paying. A fraudster can copy a website, a name and a reference number, but cannot receive money in a genuine firm's own account.
A request to pay a personal account, an account in another company's name, or a cryptoasset wallet is the point at which to stop and verify.
How MetaAshes Examines This
A MetaAshes assessment cross-references a firm's details against the official record in a single pass. For this question, the most relevant checks include:
- Domain registration age
- Official website on record
- Live website presence
- Email domain consistency
- Company existence and identity
- Payee name verification
Frequently Asked
Does the padlock in the browser mean a website is genuine?
No. The padlock shows only that the connection to the site is encrypted. Certificates are free and issued automatically, and fraudulent sites use them as routinely as genuine ones.
Are online reviews a reliable test?
Reviews can be written, bought or copied, and a new fraudulent site can appear with dozens. The official register entry, the domain's registration date and the payee name are records the site's operator does not control.
Can MetaAshes check a website for me?
Yes. A MetaAshes assessment cross-references the website with the FCA Register, Companies House, the domain's registration record, the contact details and the payment instructions in a single assessment, and records the evidence behind its verdict.
This guide is provided for general information and does not constitute financial or legal advice.