Warning signs detected
Established weather service with legitimate credentials, but billing complaints and poor subscription-support ratings create moderate consumer-trust concerns. Several risk indicators suggest caution. This site might be legitimate — but treat it as unverified until you can independently confirm.
Is windy.com legit or a scam?
Established weather service with legitimate credentials, but billing complaints and poor subscription-support ratings create moderate consumer-trust concerns.
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
MT Intelligence
Windy.com is a real, 27-year-old domain operated by a registered Czech company (Windyty, S.E., founded 2014) with active business registration and strong technical credentials. The platform is widely used by pilots, sailors, and outdoor enthusiasts, and maintains high ratings (4.7–4.8 stars) on major app stores with hundreds of thousands of reviews praising its accuracy and detail. However, our research uncovered three substantiated billing complaints on independent review aggregators describing fraudulent subscription practices: users report being charged despite cancelling free trials, refused refunds, and poor customer-support response. The company's own community forum acknowledges these concerns but disputes the 'fraud' label, offering 14-day refunds through support channels. The technical scan shows no malware, no blocklist hits, and a clean hosting reputation, confirming the site is not a phishing or malware vector. The risk is reputational and consumer-service related, not security-based.
Website Preview
Automated page render — captured in a safe sandbox. What an ordinary visitor would see when loading the site.
Web Research Findings
Our live research agent queries scam-report databases, consumer-review sites, news coverage, and general web search for windy.com, then cross-checks business-registration records and look-alike domain patterns. Everything below is pulled from what it actually found.
- Established Czech weather visualization platform founded in 2014 by Ivo Lukačovič (founder of Seznam.cz), headquartered in Prague; operates as Windyty, S.E.
- Provides animated wind maps, multiple forecast models (ECMWF, GFS, etc.), METAR/TAF, used by pilots, sailors, surfers, and governments during extreme weather.
- High user ratings on app stores (4.7-4.8 stars, hundreds of thousands of reviews) praising accuracy, detail, and usefulness for outdoor activities.
- Trustpilot page shows low 2.2/5 rating from ~52 reviews, with multiple complaints about premium subscription billing, failed refunds after trial cancellation, and poor customer support response.
- Official community forum contains user discussions questioning premium value (e.g. hourly vs 3-hour model resolution) but moderators state it is not fraud and offer 14-day refunds via support@windy.com.
- Distinguished from unrelated Windy.app (blue logo); Reddit users confirm windy.com (red logo) as the original with more features.
- Domain registered for over 27 years (age 9916 days); company privacy policy states data not sold to third parties and GDPR compliance.
- Trustpilotopen
"Fraudulent billing practices. My wife started the "free" trial which she cancelled during the 7-day trial period. Despite cancelling, she was still charged $165 for a annual subscription"
- Trustpilotopen
"It's complete garbage I wanted to try it out and it wasn't what was expected I payed 70 bucks and immediately wrote them back to refund me back and they refused to refund me."
- Windy Communityopen
"To me it's fraud because this is not what they claim to get our money : 1-hour forecast"
- Apple App Storeopen
"I have been using this app for about five years now to help me with my activities which include cycling, windsurfing kite flying and found it to be of great benefit to me. It is also very detailed. I would recommend using this without fear "
- The Great Outdoorsopen
"Windy.com is a wonderful app for anyone interested in the weather worldwide."
- Wikipediaopen
"Windy is a Czech company providing interactive weather forecasting services worldwide. The portal was founded by Ivo Lukačovič in November 2014."
- Quoraopen
"Yes, they are legit. Windy is a major source of weather information for institutions, governments and affected people during the hurricane season."
Operates as Windyty, S.E. (or Windy), founded 2014 by Ivo Lukačovič, headquartered in Prague. Incorporated December 2015 in computer systems design industry. Private company with 25-49 employees.
Our research identified three substantiated billing complaints on independent review aggregators. Users report being charged $165 and $70 respectively for annual subscriptions despite cancelling during the free trial period, with refund requests denied. A community forum post questions whether the premium tier constitutes fraud due to forecast-model resolution mismatches. Conversely, four positive sources confirm Windy.com as a legitimate Czech weather-forecasting platform founded in 2014, with 4.7–4.8 star app-store ratings from hundreds of thousands of reviews, and confirmed use by pilots, governments, and emergency services. The company's official community acknowledges billing concerns and offers 14-day refunds via support channels, but disputes the 'fraud' characterization. The disconnect between high app-store ratings and low independent-aggregator ratings suggests customer-service or billing-practice issues rather than a scam operation.
Antivirus Engines
Security Scans
Checked against the major public blocklists used by browsers and security tools — no hits.
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.
Domain & Encryption
Redirect Chain
- 1308http://windy.com/
- 2302https://windy.com/
- 3200https://www.windy.com/cross-domain
Server Reputation
Scam-Type Likelihood
1 scam-type patterns detected
0 of 13 categories showed signals
We check every URL against 13 distinct scam categories so the verdict tells you not just how risky the page is, but what kind of risk it carries. Each meter pulls from page signals, web reports, our AI analyst, vision, and the scam-network cluster — not from raw AV labels.
- AI analyst tagged this as a subscription trap.
0 of 13 categories showed signals
We check every URL against 13 distinct scam categories so the verdict tells you not just how risky the page is, but what kind of risk it carries. Each meter pulls from page signals, web reports, our AI analyst, vision, and the scam-network cluster — not from raw AV labels.
- AI analyst tagged this as a subscription trap.
Suspicious free-trial offer
This page combines a "free trial" or "$1 trial" pitch with auto-renew / rebill language — a classic negative-option billing trap.
- Treat windy.com as unverified
Do not enter credentials or send money until you have independently verified the business.
- Your card will be charged the full price after the trial
Most subscription traps bill the full amount ($49-$149) 14 days after sign-up, and every month thereafter. "Cancel anytime" often means you must call a foreign support line that's deliberately hard to reach.
- If you already signed up — call your bank today
Ask your bank to block future charges from the merchant and dispute any charges already made. Many banks will issue a new card number to prevent recurring billing. Save the confirmation email as evidence.
- OpenReport the billing scheme
Report to the FTC (reportfraud.ftc.gov) or your national consumer-protection body — subscription traps are specifically illegal in most jurisdictions when the auto-bill terms aren't clearly disclosed.
Reputation Sources
How this domain rates across independent threat-intelligence and blocklist providers.
Referenced Domains
Outbound domains this page links to or loads resources from. Each links to its own security scan.
Safety FAQ
Common questions about this site, answered from the scan data on this page. These are auto-generated — not hand-written — so they always match the underlying report.
- Our automated security review marked windy.com as suspicious. Several warning signs were detected; it may still turn out legitimate, but you should verify it through independent channels before trusting it with money or credentials.
- windy.com currently scores 55/100 on our trust scale. We found enough warning signals to recommend caution. Verify the site through independent channels before entering credentials or money.
- Yes. windy.com presents a valid TLSv1.3 certificate issued by Google Trust Services · WR3, expiring in 49 days. Note that SSL only encrypts the connection — it does not guarantee that the site itself is trustworthy.
- windy.com is 27.2 years old, registered on 4/14/1999 through eNom, LLC. Scam domains are often freshly registered — a site under 6 months old warrants extra caution.
- No. All 91 antivirus engines in our malware network report windy.com as clean.
- No. windy.com is not currently listed on the major browser blocklist feeds that modern browsers use.
- windy.com resolves to an IP operated by Google LLC in US (usage type: Content Delivery Network). 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.
- We cache results for 24 hours. Signed-in MalwareTips members can trigger a manual rescan at any time using the "Rescan" button on the report page, which re-runs every check from scratch and refreshes this page.
User reviews & comments(0)
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