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Holiday Scam Prevention

  

With holiday shopping in full swing, scammers are baiting customers with new holiday scamming schemes. Here are some common scams to look out for:

  • Order and shipping confirmation and delay correspondence: Bad actors will text and email fraudulent links to confirm orders or shipments. Instead of clicking the link, go to the site that sold you the product and search your orders (Amazon, 2022).
  • Payment confirmation correspondence: Scammers are contacting online retail customers and asking them to confirm a purchase on a credit card. Then the criminals ask for the consumer’s payment information in order to cancel the charge. Online retailers won’t ask for your payment information by phone or email (Cerullo, 2023).
  • Social media ads: These ads charge customers for items they never receive, free trials, and counterfeit items. Check out a company’s Better Business Bureau profile before you buy from it (Better Business Bureau, 2022).
  • Charity scams: Criminals will play to consumers’ charitable side during the holiday season and create fake campaigns to encourage donations. Before donating to a charitable organization, check the charity’s Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) (FBI Houston, 2023).
  • Tech support: These scams lure customers by claiming to offer tech support for devices and services. If you need tech support, go to the website of the company that sold you the device.
  • Gift cards: Bad actors will entice people to share personal information and leave reviews about a company in exchange for gift cards or purchase a certain amount of merchandise. Beware of these phishing attempts. If you spot an email like this, delete it or mark it as spam (Better Business Bureau, 2022).
  • Puppy ads: Scammers know people are looking to buy pets for Christmas. The Better Business Bureau estimates 80 percent of these ads are fake. Schedule to make your pet purchase in person (Better Business Bureau, 2022).

If you’d like to prevent yourself from falling victim to a holiday scam, be sure to follow some of these tips:

  • Don’t share your payment information: Do not share your payment information over the phone or email. Legitimate retailers will not ask for that information over the phone (Cerullo, 2023).
  • Verify the seller: Before you purchase from a company, verify its address and phone number (Illinois Attorney General, 2023).
  • Don’t give into the urgency: If a seller is telling you to respond urgently to a request, pause. Verify the seller before communicating further (Cerullo, 2023).
  • Order from secure sites: Secure sites begin with an “https” web address, instead of “http” (Illinois Attorney General, 2023).
  • Check shipping options: Online sellers are required to send products in the timeline disclosed on their website. When no shipping timeline is listed by a seller, the product must be shipped within 30 days. If your order is delayed, you may either “agree to the delay or cancel your order for a full refund” (Illinois Attorney General, 2023).

References

Amazon. (2022). Identifying Whether an Email, Phone Call, Text Message, or Webpage is from Amazon. Retrieved from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ref_=hp_left_v4_sib&nodeId=G4YFYCCNUSENA23B

Better Business Bureau. (2022, September 6). BBB Tip: The naughty list - BBB's 12 scams of Christmas. Retrieved from Better Business Bureau: https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/23497-the-naughty-list-bbbs-12-scams-of-christmas

Cerullo, M. (2023, November 15). Amazon says Prime scams are on the rise as the holidays near. Retrieved from CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-prime-scams-emails-calls/

FBI Houston. (2023, November 21). FBI Warns "Tis the Season for Holiday Scams. Retrieved from Federal Bureau of Investigation: https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/houston/news/fbi-warns-tis-the-season-for-holiday-scams

Illinois Attorney General. (2023, September). Holiday Shopping Online. Retrieved from Office of the Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul: https://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/Page-Attachments/HolidayShoppingOnline.pdf?bcs-agent-scanner=6434cb3a-6a91-4f4e-9803-5e3b3559ac5c

 

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