Warning signs detected
Established 31-year-old financial comparison site that shares user data with multiple lenders, drawing hundreds of complaints about spam and privacy issues. Several risk indicators suggest caution. This site might be legitimate — but treat it as unverified until you can independently confirm.
Is bankrate.com legit or a scam?
Be careful — we couldn't verify this site.
Established 31-year-old financial comparison site that shares user data with multiple lenders, drawing hundreds of complaints about spam and privacy issues.
Score breakdown
These checks passed — but they don't clear the site. A clean antivirus result, valid SSL, and a calm server only mean it isn't hosting malware; they say nothing about whether the business is real. This verdict is based on the site's conduct and content, not a malware detection.
Analysis Summary
Website Preview
Automated page render — captured in a safe sandbox. What an ordinary visitor would see when loading the site. Marker positions are approximate. See full visual analysis →
Visual analysis
We capture a fresh screenshot of the live page and ask a vision model to look for scam visual patterns — fake trust badges, countdown timers, overlay pop-ups, and visual clones of legitimate brands.
No scam visual patterns detected
The screenshot shows the authentic Bankrate homepage, which is a well-known financial services and comparison platform.
What our vision model saw
2 signalsThe screenshot displays the legitimate Bankrate website interface
Professional design and consistent branding throughout the visible header and hero section
Intelligence
The domain is over three decades old and carries clean antivirus and blocklist results. The page itself is the genuine Bankrate homepage with professional design and no login forms or malicious scripts detected. Our research found the site operates as a lead-generation platform that sells user information to multiple lenders. This model has produced over 1,300 complaints, including reports of data being shared with scam operations. The combination of legitimate infrastructure with a high-complaint lead-selling business creates moderate risk for users who submit personal details.
Web Research Findings
Our live research agent queries scam-report databases, consumer-review sites, news coverage, and general web search for bankrate.com, then cross-checks business-registration records and look-alike domain patterns. Everything below is pulled from what it actually found.
- Bankrate is a long-standing financial comparison website founded in 1976, now owned by Red Ventures.
- The site functions as a lead-generation platform, meaning it collects user information to share with third-party lenders, which often leads to complaints about spam calls and emails.
- Users have reported negative experiences involving aggressive sales tactics and potential phishing attempts from third parties contacted through the platform.
- The company maintains active business registrations and NMLS licensing for its mortgage-related services.
- Trustpilot and other review platforms show mixed feedback, with a significant number of 1-star reviews citing privacy concerns and unwanted solicitations.
- Bankrate explicitly states it is not a lender and does not make credit decisions, acting solely as an intermediary.
- WalletHub
"Bankrate is a scam; don't use them. They will take money from your account and ruin you. They said I qualified for a loan, I gave them my information, and a few days later, all my money was gone."
- WalletHub
"This sounded more like a voice phishing scam to me. When they call you, just hang up; even better, don't submit a request via Bankrate."
- BBB
"Bankrate was supposed to send my personal information to up to 3 places that provided REMOVED's. Instead they sold my information to dozens of companies, including dozens of scams"
- Trustpilot
"I submitted my info and asked to speak to two mortgage companies - Tomo and Sage. Both reached out to me promptly and have had wonderful customer service"
Operates as Bankrate, LLC; maintains NMLS licensing (ID 1427381) and is a subsidiary of Red Ventures.
Our research located three scam reports and over 1,300 complaints across consumer review platforms. Users frequently report that Bankrate shares their information with dozens of companies, resulting in unwanted calls and occasional exposure to fraudulent lenders. One positive review praised prompt contact from two mortgage companies. The company maintains active business registration and mortgage licensing in the United States.
Domain Timeline
- Mar 6, 1995Domain registered
First appeared in WHOIS records — 31 years old today.
- Jul 15, 2026Latest security review — Flagged as suspicious
This scan re-ran every check; the current findings are detailed above.
bankrate.com is an established domain now carrying threat signals. An older domain that starts tripping security checks is a classic pattern for an asset that was sold, repurposed, or compromised — the age alone is not reassurance.
Threat Detection
Antivirus Engines
Security Scans
Checked against the major public blocklists used by browsers and security tools — no hits.
Reputation Sources
How this domain rates across independent threat-intelligence and blocklist providers.
Technical Details
domain · encryption · redirects · server reputation · referencedThe plumbing behind the site — who registered it, how it’s encrypted, where it’s hosted, and where it links out. A valid certificate or a calm server doesn’t mean the business is honest — scam sites pass these checks too. Use this to corroborate the verdict, not to overturn it.
Contact Verification
We fetched the page and looked for real-world contact details. Legitimate businesses almost always publish an email on their own domain, a phone number, and a postal address. Scam shops usually don't.
- No contact email found anywhere on the page.
- No phone number listed on the page.
- No postal address visible on the page.
- Scam family match: Investment Scheme.
Domain & Encryption
Redirect Chain
- 1301http://bankrate.com/
- 2200https://www.bankrate.com/
Server Reputation
Referenced Domains
Outbound domains this page links to or loads resources from. Each links to its own security scan.
What to do
Proceed with caution
Our automated review flagged enough risk that you should treat this site as unverified.
- Treat bankrate.com as unverified
Do not enter credentials or send money until you have independently verified the business.
- Verify the business through independent channels
Check the company's social profiles, registry records, and search for recent news or reviews that are not hosted on the site itself.
- Never use irreversible payment methods
Crypto, gift cards, wire transfers, and cash apps offer zero buyer protection. Use a credit card or PayPal if you must pay.
- OpenShare your experience
If you have additional context, drop a comment below or post on the MalwareTips forum.
Final Verdict
Bankrate is a long-established financial comparison site that collects user details and forwards them to third-party lenders. The strongest concern is the high volume of complaints about data being shared with dozens of companies, resulting in aggressive marketing calls and potential exposure to scams.
Safety FAQ
Common questions, answered directly from the scan data above — so the answers always reflect the latest verdict on this page.
- bankrate.com looks like a likely scam site — avoid interacting with it. Our review tagged it for data harvester. The domain is 31.4 years old through GoDaddy Corporate Domains, LLC. It may not be an outright scam, but the risk is high enough that you should verify it independently before trusting it with money or data.
- Proceed with caution — bankrate.com scores 55/100 on our trust scale. We found enough warning signals to recommend verifying it through independent channels before entering credentials or money.
- If you've already paid or handed over details on bankrate.com, act quickly. 1) Contact your bank or card issuer immediately and ask to dispute the charge or open a chargeback — the sooner you act, the better your odds. 2) Report the site to the U.S. FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov or the FBI's IC3 at ic3.gov, and in the UK to Action Fraud at actionfraud.police.uk. 3) If you entered a password, change it on bankrate.com and anywhere you reused it, and turn on two-factor authentication. 4) Watch your bank and email for follow-up fraud, and keep screenshots as evidence.
- Often yes, if you act fast. Payments made by credit or debit card can frequently be reversed through a chargeback or dispute — contact your bank right away and explain it was a fraudulent site. Bank transfers and gift-card or voucher payments are much harder to recover, but you should still report them to your bank and to the FTC (reportfraud.ftc.gov) or Action Fraud (actionfraud.police.uk). Avoid any "refund" or "recovery" service that contacts you first — it's usually a follow-up scam.
- Just viewing a scam page is usually low-risk on an up-to-date browser — the real danger is what it asks you to DO (enter details, download a file, send money). If you downloaded anything, run a full antivirus scan and treat the file as untrusted. If you entered a password or card number, change the password everywhere you reused it and contact your bank.
- You can report bankrate.com through several official channels: the U.S. FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at ic3.gov, and — in the UK — Action Fraud at actionfraud.police.uk. You can also flag it to Google Safe Browsing (safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish) so other browsers warn about it, and report it to the company being impersonated if there is one. Reporting helps get scam sites taken down faster.
- Modern scams are built to look convincing. A valid SSL padlock, a polished template, stock photos, fake reviews, and a trust badge can all be added in minutes and prove nothing about who runs the site. Scammers buy cheap domains, clone real designs, and copy legal pages wholesale. That's exactly why an automated review that checks the domain's age, hosting, blacklists, and behaviour — rather than just how the page looks — is more reliable than a first impression.
- No — all 92 antivirus and blocklist engines in our malware network currently report bankrate.com as clean. That's a good sign, though antivirus coverage is only one of the many signals we weigh, and brand-new scam sites can appear clean before vendors catch up.
- No — bankrate.com is not currently on the major browser blocklist feeds that Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge rely on. Note that blocklists can lag behind brand-new scam domains, so "not listed" is reassuring but not a guarantee on its own.
- bankrate.com is 31.4 years old, registered on March 6, 1995 through GoDaddy Corporate Domains, LLC. A multi-year registration history is one of the stronger signals against a scam, though it's never a guarantee on its own — established domains can still be misused.
- Yes — bankrate.com presents a valid TLSv1.2 certificate issued by GlobalSign nv-sa · GlobalSign Atlas R3 DV TLS CA 2025 Q4, valid for another 178 days. Important caveat: SSL only encrypts the connection between you and the site — it does not verify who runs it. Almost all scam sites now have valid SSL too, so a padlock alone never means "safe".
- bankrate.com resolves to an IP operated by Fastly, Inc. in US (Content Delivery Network). Hosting location alone doesn't make a site good or bad — but hosting that doesn't match a brand's claimed country, or that sits on networks known for abuse, is one of the many signals we weigh alongside the verdict above.
User reviews & comments(0)
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