No threats detected
All checks passed. This site appears legitimate — but always stay alert for phishing even on trusted domains.
Is friendsatnih.org legit or a scam?
Established 501(c)(3) nonprofit supporting NIH patients with 11.8-year-old domain and clean security profile.
Analysis Summary
Website Preview
Automated page render — captured in a safe sandbox. What an ordinary visitor would see when loading the site. 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.
Visual red flags detected in the screenshot
The website appears to be a legitimate nonprofit organization page for 'Friends of Patients at the NIH' with professional design and no visual indicators of a scam.
What our vision model saw
6 signalsProfessional nonprofit layout with consistent branding and high-quality imagery
Functional navigation menu including About Us, Get Help, and Events
Prominent 'Donate Now' call-to-action button in the header
Mission statement clearly displayed in a central carousel overlay
Includes a reCAPTCHA badge in the bottom right corner indicating standard security
No visible urgency tactics, fake trust badges, or suspicious forms
Intelligence
The site presents as a legitimate nonprofit helping NIH Clinical Center patients with emotional, financial, and logistical support. Domain registration from 2014 and active 501(c)(3) status since 1986 provide strong legitimacy signals. Zero detections across 92 antivirus engines and clean browser blocklist status confirm no malicious code. Charity Navigator awarded a 4/4 star rating and the organization appears in the official NIH Clinical Center Patient Handbook. No scam reports, complaints, or negative reviews surfaced in our research. The combination of long domain history, verified tax-exempt status, and official NIH references outweighs the lack of traffic indexing.
Web Research Findings
Our live research agent queries scam-report databases, consumer-review sites, news coverage, and general web search for friendsatnih.org, then cross-checks business-registration records and look-alike domain patterns. Everything below is pulled from what it actually found.
- Domain friendsatnih.org registered 2014-10-02 (age ~11.8 years); organization founded 1984.
- EIN 52-1449492; 501(c)(3) public charity, tax-exempt since June 1986; PO Box 34139, Bethesda, MD 20827.
- 4/4 Star rating on Charity Navigator; listed on GuideStar/Candid with Platinum status noted in some directories.
- Official NIH Clinical Center Patient Handbook (cc.nih.gov) explicitly references www.friendsatnih.org and phone 301-402-0193 for patient support services.
- Partnership with Foundation for the NIH (FNIH) announced 2019; provides emergency financial, housing, logistical support to NIH Clinical Center patients/families.
- No scam reports, fraud complaints, or negative reviews found across web searches including Reddit; only positive charity ratings and official references.
- Active social media (Facebook, X/Twitter @FriendsAtNIH, LinkedIn); recent 2023-2024 tax filings and program updates publicly available on site.
501(c)(3) tax-exempt since June 1986, EIN 52-1449492, headquartered in Bethesda, MD. Formerly known as Friends of the Clinical Center. Founded 1984.
Our research located the organization's EIN 52-1449492 and confirmed 501(c)(3) status since June 1986. Charity Navigator awarded a 4/4 star rating. The official NIH Clinical Center Patient Handbook references friendsatnih.org as a patient support resource. A 2019 partnership with the Foundation for the NIH is documented publicly. No scam reports, fraud complaints, or negative reviews appeared across searched sources including Reddit.
Domain Timeline
- Oct 2, 2014Domain registered
First appeared in WHOIS records — 12 years old today.
- Jul 8, 2026Latest security review — Reviewed as safe
This scan re-ran every check and found no active threat signals.
friendsatnih.org has operated for years with no threat signals in this review — a long, stable track record, though it is never a guarantee on its own.
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 · referencedContact 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 postal address visible on the page.
- Phone number listed (301-402-0193).
- Links to 2 social profiles.
Domain & Encryption
Redirect Chain
- 1301http://friendsatnih.org/
- 2200https://www.friendsatnih.org/
Server Reputation
Referenced Domains
Outbound domains this page links to or loads resources from. Each links to its own security scan.
What to do
Still, stay alert
No major threat indicators — but a clean scan does not guarantee every page is safe, and phishing emails routinely spoof real domains.
- Double-check the exact URL in your address bar
Confirm you are actually on friendsatnih.org and not a lookalike like f-riendsatnih.org.com or an IDN homoglyph.
- Use a password manager
Password managers only auto-fill on the exact domain they were saved for — they refuse to fill lookalike domains, which is the single best phishing defence.
- OpenDiscuss this site on the forum
If you have first-hand experience with this site — good or bad — share it with the MalwareTips community.
Final Verdict
This is the official website of Friends of Patients at the NIH, a registered 501(c)(3) charity. The domain is 11.8 years old with clean scans and no scam reports. No payment details needed unless donating through their verified channels.
Safety FAQ
Common questions about this site, answered directly from the scan data above — so the answers always reflect the latest verdict on this page.
- Our automated security review found no threat indicators on friendsatnih.org. The site appears legitimate based on the signals we checked, but always stay alert for phishing emails that spoof real domains.
- friendsatnih.org passed our automated security checks with a trust score of 92/100. No antivirus engines or major blacklists flagged the site at the time of the last scan.
- Yes. friendsatnih.org presents a valid TLSv1.2 certificate issued by Let's Encrypt · YR2, expiring in 66 days. Note that SSL only encrypts the connection — it does not guarantee that the site itself is trustworthy.
- friendsatnih.org is 11.8 years old, registered on 10/2/2014 through GoDaddy.com, LLC. Scam domains are often freshly registered — a site under 6 months old warrants extra caution.
- No. All 92 antivirus engines in our malware network report friendsatnih.org as clean.
- No. friendsatnih.org is not currently listed on the major browser blocklist feeds that modern browsers use.
- friendsatnih.org resolves to an IP operated by Liquid Web, L.L.C in US (usage type: Data Center/Web Hosting/Transit). Hosting location alone doesn't make a site good or bad, but unusual geography for a brand's claimed country is one of many signals we weigh.
- This is a permanent record of the scan run on July 8, 2026. The verdict and evidence above reflect that scan and do not change on their own. If circumstances around friendsatnih.org have changed, MalwareTips staff can run a fresh scan, which re-runs every check from scratch and publishes an updated report.
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