How legit?

Someone asked me yesterday "Is there a way I can check if a site is legitimate". The common problem is that anybody can make a website that looks convincing and offering to sell you things. Often at prices that are too good to be true. So how do you know if you are on to a winner or a looser? Well the first thing you can do (If you are looking at UK companies) is to check them with companies house.

1. Go to the companies house web site.
2. Select the "WebCHeck" [sic] link
3. Put the companies name into the search box
4. click search
5. See if you can find it in the list then it isn't a registered UK company

While this isn't fail safe it's a start. More later