Is Think Budget a Scam or Legit? | Website Review
Website Information
Official Domain
thinkbudget.co.uk
Registered on
2017-08-21
Location
Not provided
Owner
Not provided
Alexa Rank
No data
Website Speed
Slow
Other Websites on Server
0 other websites on this server
Think Budget is an online service which claims to provide tools for financial planning and protecting your bank accounts.
They charge a monthly subscription fee of £29.91. Though the website states that you can ‘cancel at any point’, any subscription fee paid is final and you can only prevent the subscription from being renewed. Payments which have already been made cannot be refunded.
Though the website shows several images of the service being used on a phone, there is no mention of the service being offered through an app. No apps for Think Budget could be found on the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. It seems to be a browser-based service only.
Even though the website is almost three years old, there is no Alexa rank available for the website and traffic data showed that the website has received almost no visitors during its existence. This means that the service is not popular and doesn’t seem to have any users. The site has a 'noindex' tag, which means that it has been intentionally kept hidden from search engines like Google.
While checking the uniqueness of the website content, there was another website called Money Meteor (https://moneymeteor.co.uk/) which was found to be using the same content as Think Budget. However, it seems Money Meteor has copied content of Think Budget as it was created almost two years after Think Budget, on 2019-08-15.
When I tested the account creation process of the website using a dummy card number, I found that there was no authentication process with the payment portal. The dummy card was immediately accepted. There was no confirmation email from Think Budget after signing up.
The dashboard looked completely empty and I couldn’t find a way to input any information.
Company Information
Email ID
welcome@thinkbudget.co.uk
Phone Number
0345 565 1777
Address
4th Floor, Silverstream House, 45 Fitzroy Street, Fitzrovia, London, W1T 6EB
Company Name
Source Anytime Technologies LTD
Registration Number
10904859 (UK)
Owner
SHAW, Mark (Company Director)
Social Media Profiles
Not found
Scamadviser Verification
The Scamadviser page of Think Budget has not been claimed by the company.
The company registration number provided looks legitimate; however, the same address has been used by several other companies. The Company Director Mark Shaw is listed as the director of five other companies and is active in four of them. All the active companies listed under Mark Shaw use the same address as the one provided for Think Budget and they were registered between July to September 2017. No LinkedIn profile could be found belonging to this particular Mark Shaw. These points could indicate that Mark Shaw has been used as a figurehead to register the company for someone else.
The phone number and email ID provided were found to be working when tested using TextMagic and MailTester respectively, but the number could not be verified on TrueCaller. Therefore, it might not be actively used.
User Reviews
There are almost no reviews available for ThinkBudget on any website. There is only one comment on the Scamadviser page for Think Budget which simply states ‘This is a scam’ with no further information provided. You can read the user review here.
This is highly suspicious for a service that has been active for almost three years.
Conclusion
There is a high likelihood of Think Budget being a scam.
Scamadviser’s algorithms have given Think Budget a low Trust Score of 1%, indicating that it is extremely risky to sign up for this service. You can read more about Think Budget’s Trust Score here.
The website does not raise any red flags with regards to design, content or contact information. The company registration seems a bit sketchy but doesn’t show obvious signs of a scam. The website not having any traffic is odd and I was surprised that this kind of service did not have a smartphone app. None of these things is too suspicious and I didn’t find any confirmation of a scam.
However, the sign-up process and empty dashboard seem to be huge indicators of a phishing scam. There was no card authentication and I was taken to the dashboard immediately. There is no actual functionality in the dashboard and I didn’t receive any sign-up or payment confirmation from Think Budget. These points signal that the website might have been set up to phish for card details.
Money Meteor might be the same phishing scam run by the same people, as it was created exactly a week before Think Budget would have turned two years old. The company registration details of Money Meteor are equally sketchy and it is clearly using copied content. The sign-up process on Money Meteor went exactly the same way as Think Budget, as it accepted the card details without authentication and did not send a confirmation. Unlike Think Budget, Money Meteor simply did not allow me to log in after the payment was completed. It would be advisable to avoid both Think Budget and Money Meteor, as they seem to be phishing scams.
Learn More
It is always recommended to proceed with caution while sharing sensitive details like bank or card details on websites. Entering these details on untrustworthy websites can cause your accounts to be compromised, allowing scammers to carry out unauthorized transactions. Read the articles below to know the steps that you can take for a safe and pleasant online shopping experience.
How to Recognize a Scam - Phishing
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This article has been written by a scam fighter volunteer. If you believe the article above contains inaccuracies or is missing relevant information, please contact Scamadviser.com using this form.
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