Member
Not always but I would say 90% in my experience. The other 10% are legitimate resellers who are lazy about their infrastructure.
I check if the brands share support chat widget. Same crisp color, same agent names? Same company pretending to be different.
Member
Slow reply because I went and checked something.
Your post got cut off there but I assume you mean searching the exact offer text. I do this and find the same "exclusive limited stock" paragraph on four different template sites. Word for word. Even the fake urgency is outsourced now.
Melbourne evening here. Will check thread tomorrow.
Member
I use Shodan to check if their IP range was previously used for something else. Many cheap hosts buy old ranges that were blacklisted for spam or worse — https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx
Found one host in Warsaw whose /24 was listed on six blocklists from 2019. They opened shop in 2023 and wondered why deliverability was bad.
Member
In Turkey this is harder because many small hosts use individual trade certificate, not limited company. Not fake, just poor. But if they cannot show even that, then yes run away my friend.
I find best price but I also check if price is possible. Ryzen 9 with 64GB for 3 dollars? Physics says no.
Following this thread. Made notes from first page already.
One addition: check their upstream. Real host will tell you if you ask pre-sales. Fake host will say "premium network" or ignore you. I ask who their transit is and then check if that ASN actually announces their prefix.
This. I have seen hosts claim Cogent and HE but the prefix only shows in one upstream's looking glass. The other is a lie for the sales page.
Also: search the owner name on company registries. I found one director with five dissolved hosting companies behind him. The sixth had a fresh logo and the same phone number.
Time checks matter too. I NTP-sync before I test their status page timestamps. My local clock skew once made a legitimate host look fake because I was 90 seconds off and thought their updates were too regular.
Synchronize your clocks, people. Chaos is no excuse for bad data.
