How to avoid minefield of online Black Friday scams
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Black Friday and Cyber Monday offer scores of opportunities to save on holiday gifts or even personal shopping.
But big sales could also mean bad actors are prowling the internet, trying to lure consumers into falling for one of their scams.
Over the past five years, Americans have lost about $27.6 billion to online scams. Last year saw a record loss of $10.3 billion.
This year’s holiday season is expected to see more than $220 billion in online shopping sales, which would be a record, according to online investigation service Social Catfish, making “consumers likely to lose even more money to scams unless they learn how to avoid them.”
So how are these scammers finding ways to steal from people online?
Here are some Black Friday and Cyber Monday scams to look out for, according to Social Catfish:
Fake stores scam
Social media is a prime field for scammers to capture their victims’ attention.
One of their tactics is fabricating and advertising “incredible deals” from well-known stores.
But “once you click the link, it takes you to a look-alike website of a major brand,” according to Social Catfish. “Any gifts purchased will never arrive.”
The way scammers mask the brand’s website is by changing or including a letter in the URL, which is what consumers should check for before buying on that website.
Fake gift cards
One of the most common holiday gifts, gift cards, are often a target for scammers.
“People can save money by purchasing gift cards from resale sites like giftcards.com,” according to Social Catfish.
“However, scammers are on these sites selling gift cards that arrive with no balance.”
For a monthly fee, the company offers its “reverse search” tools for customers to locate an online seller’s background to ensure their authenticity.
Fake shopping notifications
Many online shoppers rely on their delivery services to track their purchase’s shipment status.
“Scammers are capitalizing on the increased number of packages delivered during the holidays by emailing or texting a delivery notification with a ‘tracking link,’ ” according to Social Catfish. “This is a phishing link used for identity theft.”
Instead of clicking on these notification links (which often come via email and text messages), customers should only track packages on the official UPS, USPS, FedEx or other delivery service websites.
Which apps are most popular for scams?
A Social Catfish poll of 5,500 scam victims pointed to the apps and websites where they mostly happen.
They included Facebook, Google Hangouts, WhatsApp, Instagram and Plenty of Fish.