Protect Yourself from These Common Holiday Shopping Scams

With the holidays approaching, scammers are targeting online shoppers with a variety of devious strategies. These can include classic phishing scams, false advertisements, and even fake charities. Read this guide to educate yourself about the most common holiday shopping scams and how to protect yourself from them.

Fake Online Stores

Scammers often create online stores with heavily discounted prices. Most of these stores will simply steal your payment information or trick you into using payment methods that are not easy to reverse, such as wire transfers or payment apps. In the best-case scenario, you’ll receive a counterfeit product. In the worst case, you’ll receive nothing and your money and even your identity could be stolen.

How to Stay Safe:

• Be wary of online stores you’ve never heard of. If the discounts look too good to be true, they probably are.
• Check for signs of phishing scams on the website, such as spelling and grammar mistakes.
• Many scammers post ads and links to these stores on social media. Check the account that posted it. If it has very few followers or seems suspicious in any way, it’s probably a scam.
• Only buy from reputable retailers when shopping online.

Online Marketplace Scams

Scammers will list popular or expensive items at deeply discounted prices on platforms such as Facebook Marketplace or eBay. The scammer often claims that they bought the item, but have to get rid of it now. They may even ask you to just pay for shipping. Once you agree, they will ask you to pay with an app like Venmo or Zelle, from which you can’t recover money after you’ve sent it.

How to Stay Safe:

• Be wary of discounts that seem too good to be true, especially on public marketplaces.
• Don’t pay with apps like Venmo or Zelle unless you’re sure that you trust the seller.

Gift Cards

There are many forms of gift card scams, but the most common involves a scammer demanding you pay them with gift cards. They may impersonate a government agent and demand payment in gift cards for fines or fees accrued. They will instruct you to buy gift cards and send the card numbers to them.

Some scammers will also tamper with gift cards in stores. They can apply fake barcode stickers to cards, which, when scanned, sends money to the scammer instead of your card.

Scammers also create fake gift card activation sites that they use to steal money from people’s cards.

How to Stay Safe:

• No legitimate organization will ever demand payment via gift cards. Only use gift cards for personal gifts.
• When buying a gift card, examine it closely to see if a false barcode sticker has been placed on it or if the card number has already been scratched off.
• Verify that you’re on the retailer’s official website before activating your gift card or call the number on your card to activate it.

Fake Charities

Some scammers set up fake charity websites or GoFundMe campaigns, trying to take advantage of holiday season generosity. They may even impersonate a reputable charity.

How to Stay Safe:

• Some fake charity websites impersonate real charities. Double check the URL and verify that this is the charity’s official website.
• Use the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance or Charity Navigator to check if a charity you’ve never heard of is legitimate.

Mail Scams

Scammers know that you’re ordering a lot of packages during the holidays, and they take advantage of this by sending out fake delivery updates via text or email. These messages, purporting to be from USPS, UPS, or FedEx, will claim that there was a problem delivering your package due to incomplete or invalid delivery information. They will then ask you to click a link or copy and paste a URL into your browser to “update your information.”

How to Stay Safe:

• Don’t believe messages that ask you to enter sensitive information.
• If you have any doubts about your delivery, track it through the carrier’s official website or call them at the number listed on their site.

Public Wi-Fi

Be careful when using public Wi-Fi, especially during the holidays. Hackers can break into public networks and steal data that travels on them, such as usernames and passwords that you enter while doing online shopping. They may also set up a malicious Wi-Fi network with an apparently trustworthy name, such as “Coffee Shop Guest Wi-Fi,” then steal your data after you’ve connected.

How to Stay Safe:

• Don’t do any online shopping on public Wi-Fi networks. If you must use public Wi-Fi, use a VPN to protect your data.
• Stay away from Wi-Fi networks that don’t require a password to join.

Stay Safe with SharePoint Credit Union

SharePoint Credit Union takes the safety and security of our members seriously. As part of our safety measures, we will never request your online or mobile banking login details. Visit our Financial Wellness Hub to learn more about avoiding scams, or contact us today to become a member.
 

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