Fake website watch
Find the fake websites before your attendees do
Scammers copy your event’s website to sell tickets, stands and hotel rooms that don’t exist. We look for them every day, photograph each one safely, put the evidence together for you, and help you get them taken down.
The problem
A fake site can be live for weeks before anyone tells you
It usually starts the same way. Someone registers an address a lot like yours, copies your logo and your wording, and adds a payment page. Then they email your exhibitors and attendees with a link. By the time a worried exhibitor phones you, people have already paid.
Finding these sites by hand means endless searching, and visiting them yourself is risky. Reporting them means knowing who to tell and what evidence they need. Most organisers simply don’t have the time.
How it works
4 simple steps
We look every day
New addresses, pages and event listings that look like yours or use your event’s name.
We photograph each one
In a safe, separate browser, so nobody on your team has to visit it.
You decide in one click
Scam, ours, someone else’s, or keep watching. We remember your answer.
We help take it down
An evidence pack and ready-made reports to the people who can switch it off.
See it without visiting it
Every site we find comes with a recent screenshot beside your real one, so you can tell at a glance whether it’s a copy, a parked page or someone else’s genuine business. We keep checking, because many fake sites sit quietly as a blank page until a week before your event.
- Screenshots taken safely, never on your computer
- Your real site shown alongside for comparison
- Re-checked regularly, so a quiet page that comes to life is caught
Fake copies of your event on ticket sites
Not every fake needs its own website. It’s quicker to list your event on a free event listing site and take the money there. So we search Eventbrite for listings of your event that aren’t yours, and check listings on Meetup, Luma, AllEvents, 10times and Facebook and LinkedIn events whenever they turn up. Each one is photographed, and we tell you who listed it, so a copy posted by someone else stands out straight away.
- Eventbrite searched for copies of your event
- Listings on other event sites checked when they appear
- Mark your own listings as yours once, and we leave them alone
- Step-by-step help to report a fake listing to the site
An evidence pack, ready when you need it
When you mark a site as a scam, everything you need to report it is already together: the screenshots with dates, when the address was registered and who it was registered with, what it copies from you, and a clear timeline. That’s exactly what browser safety teams, domain sellers and hosting companies ask for.
- Dated screenshots and a simple timeline
- Who registered the address, and when
- What it copies: your logo, your words, your prices
Takedown, without the paperwork
Report a confirmed scam site to the services that warn web browsers, and to the companies the scammer depends on, in a few clicks. You read every report before it goes, and replies come back to you. You can even choose to report every confirmed scam automatically.
- Ask web browsers to warn visitors
- Ready-written reports to the domain seller and host
- Every confirmed site also caught when people check it
A typical case
Ten days before a trade show, we find a ticket site with a name one letter different from the show’s own. The screenshot shows the organiser’s logo and a “last few tickets” banner. The marketing manager marks it as a scam from her phone, sends the ready-made reports, and tells her exhibitors in one email. Anyone who pastes the address into the show’s check page is now told it’s a scam.
Questions people ask
How do you find fake websites?
We look every day for new web addresses and pages that look like yours or use your event’s name, plus anything people report to us. We don’t publish the details of how we search, because that would help the people we’re trying to catch.
Do you look for fake event listings as well as websites?
Yes. We search Eventbrite for listings of your event that aren’t yours, and check listings on other free event sites such as Meetup, Luma, AllEvents, 10times, Facebook and LinkedIn events when they turn up in our searches or in reports. Your own listings can be marked as yours, so they’re never flagged.
Do I have to visit the fake site?
No. We photograph every site in a safe, separate browser, so you can see what it looks like without risking your own computer.
Can you guarantee a fake site will be taken down?
No one can. Taking a site down is up to the companies that sell and host it. We make reporting quick and give them the evidence they need, which is what gets sites switched off fastest.
What if a site is someone else’s genuine business?
Mark it as “nothing to do with us” and we stop flagging it. If it changes later and starts copying you, we’ll tell you.
Works even better with
Related protection
Website badge and copy alerts
Add one line of code to your event website to show a verified badge to visitors and get an alert when a copy of your site appears somewhere else.
Find out moreTrack down and report
Find the companies a scam relies on, from the domain seller to the email provider, and send them clear, reviewed reports in a few clicks.
Find out moreCheck page and check address
Give your exhibitors and attendees one place to check whether an email, website, phone number or invoice really comes from your event.
Find out moreFree for event organisers
Protect your event today. It’s free.
Set up in an afternoon. Your exhibitors and attendees get a place to check what’s really you, and you get an early warning when someone uses your name.