Thirty seconds on the payment screen

Four checks, all of them visible on the page in front of you, all of them worth doing during a launch week when search traffic and lookalike pages are both at their peak.

Check the domain

Character by character, not at a glance. The padlock confirms the connection is encrypted; it says nothing about who is on the other end. Those are different guarantees and only one of them is the one you need here.

Check the processor

Look for a recognised processor's branding at the point of payment. Its presence means the card data is going to an organisation built for holding card data, rather than into a form somebody assembled.

Check the price

$2,497 or the first instalment of 6 payments of $497. A figure that is neither means a different product, a different seller, or a page you did not mean to be on. Stop and work out which before continuing.

Check the terms

Refund terms live on this screen for launch products. Not in the pre-launch material, not on the sales page - here, at the moment of payment.

Read them and screenshot them. This is the highest-value ten seconds in the whole process and almost nobody spends it.

The mismatch worth taking seriously

A price that is close but not exact. A wrong figure that is wildly different reads as obviously off; one that is a few hundred out reads like a promotion, which is what makes it effective.

The published figures are the two on this page and nothing else. Anything between them, above them or below them is a page worth leaving.

What to capture

• The refund wording in full
• The price and which route you took
• The date and time
• The confirmation screen

Why launch weeks specifically

Because the search volume for a product name spikes into a narrow window, and high intent concentrated into a few days is exactly the traffic that lookalike pages are built to intercept.

The defence is not general caution. It is the four checks above, done once, on the screen you are already looking at.

The one thing worth doing before you open the checkout at all

Decide which payment route you want. Full or instalments, settled before you are looking at a form with your card in your hand.

People who arrive at the payment screen still deciding tend to close the tab and return "later". During a launch, later has a deadline attached that they have usually not converted into their own timezone.

The reassuring half

All four pass on the real thing, and all four are checkable before any money moves. This is a purchase you can verify in advance, which is not true of every offer in this category.

The order form · Price and deadline · Confirming the official pages