When you are getting ready to buy products or services from a new company, how are you going to make sure they are not going to scam you? Nobody wants to lose money and be scammed. When you are looking for a company online do you just pick a name randomly or are you looking a bit further by finding out if they are reliable, read complains and reviews, and make sure they are the real deal?

The web is full of information and it’s quite easy to review a company online to make sure you are getting yourself into something that you are going to regret. Here’s a couple of resources and things to look for that you can use when reviewing a company.

Review a company

Where did you hear about the company? Did you do a search on the web and found them? Was it a referral from a friend? Did you receive a spam email about them? Did they call you without your permission? Are they following common business practices? This is the first indicator that you can use if they are the real deal or not.

Do they have a website? If they have a website, make sure the read their privacy policy, terms and conditions and contact information. Do they have an “About” page that explains who and what they stand for? Do they use a real address on their contact form?

How long have they been operating? Study information about them and find out how long have they been doing what they are doing. You can do a simple check for how long their website has been running by doing a lookup on a whois information server.

Do they have any reviews online? Check online if they have any positive or negative reviews. If they have more negative reviews online than positive, what does this tell you about them?

Sometimes to review a company is as easy as doing a simple search on Google and see what comes up. You can also look for them on other channels such as Google places, social media channels, and various review websites to make sure if they have a presence online or not.