Protect yourself from Black Friday scammers with these 3 tips

Black Friday is the perfect time to grab discounted Christmas gifts. It’s also the day of the year when you’re most likely to fall victim to an online scam, according to the director of Norton’s Scam Research Labs.

About 50% of online consumers are scammed each year through various methods to steal money or data, Leyla Bilge of Norton told Fox News Digital. Of those robberies, she said, 30% occurred on Black Friday, 16% on Christmas Day and 14% on Christmas Eve; and 11% occur on Cyber ​​Monday.

But as shoppers take advantage of holiday deals, the cybersecurity company’s research lab has identified the most common online scams and Bilge offered tips on how to avoid each one.

TIPS TO HELP YOU IDENTIFY IF AN ONLINE STORE IS REAL OR A SCAM

Shoppers search for Black Friday deals at South Coast Plaza on November 25, 2022 in Costa Mesa, California. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

1. E-shop scam

According to Bilge, “hundreds” of fake shops appear online every year.

“It is very easy to create a fake e-shop that looks really realistic. The appearance is amazing. It won’t be easy to see. “So even we sometimes have difficulty figuring out whether something is real or not,” Bilge said. “Scams make you think twice because they are really complicated and sophisticated these days, especially with AI. Things are becoming much more powerful.”

But with common sense, new tools and a few tactics, they can be identified.

One sign that an online retailer may be fake is that their offers are “too good to be true.”

“For example, if something sells for $100, you can’t get it for $10,” Bilge said. “So it’s not like you’ll never get a 90% discount, but you usually get crazy discounts like this on sites like this.”

Fake e-stores, fake charities, and “smishing” are among the most common ways scammers use to take advantage of shoppers around the holidays. (Kurt Knutsson)

Bilge said payment pages on these fake sites often provide useful clues.

“Usually on the first page they always tell you that you can pay with anything: PayPal, with Google, Google Pay or Amazon or Apple Pay or, you know, Visa, Mastercard and so on,” Bilge said . “But when you actually checkout… they’ll either tell you to pay with a gift card because it’s hard for us to trace it… or they’ll tell you to do it with PayPal.”

“When you see discrepancies like that between the first and last pages, you have to be very careful,” she continued.

Looking at the URL of a website can also be helpful, said Bilge.

“Let’s say that (the fake e-store) could be an imitation of Amazon,” she said. “You might want to check that the name of the website actually matches the brand, because let’s say you have Amazon.com, (your website might be called) Amazonbeautifulverycool.com, something like that.”

Paying attention before taking advantage of an attractive offer could save your wallet and your private information, she said, and that includes checking out the seller itself if you’ve never shopped there before.

“Maybe you should be really careful and contact third-party organizations that actually provide reviews about our organizations,” Bilge said. “We actually have an AI-powered chatbot that we call Norton Genie that a user can easily cross-check.”

According to Norton data, about 30% of Black Friday shoppers fall victim to fraud. (iStock)

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Buyers can also crowdsource for cons. Reddit’s scam subreddit, Reddit.com/r/scams, has nearly 1 million subscribers, many of whom quickly answer questions about suspicious sites from experience or their own technical expertise.

A quick Google search often uncovers fake e-shops. The Better Business Bureau also has a searchable list of accredited and non-accredited businesses that can be used.

Always look for the lock icon in the browser address bar, which indicates that the website is using a secure connection. You can also check the website URL to see if it starts with “https” instead of “http,” which would also indicate a secure connection.

Finally, check the company’s website for a physical address and phone number. If you’re unsure about its legitimacy, you can do a quick Google Maps search to see if the company comes up.

2. Package delivery “smishing” scam

Many consumers receive a higher volume of packages around the holidays as they order gifts from friends and family.

However, this makes them more vulnerable to “smishing” scams: fake text messages or emails from UPS, the US Postal Service, or Amazon, etc. sent by scammers to collect personal information.

“They will tell you there is a problem with your payment or that you need to make an additional payment so they can actually steal your money,” Bilge said. “Or they could be trying to actually compromise some personal information so they can use it in another type of attack that may take place later.”

One way to spot these scams is to take a closer look at the phone number or email address the correspondence is coming from.

Smishing is a scam in which a fraudster attempts to impersonate a legitimate company via SMS. (CyberGuy.com)

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“You can check the sender or the email address. In most cases it will be some random characters and [email protected] which is really suspicious. I mean, that’s never going to happen,” Bilge said. “With an email like this, you will never receive an email from Amazon or UPS.”

In general, such emails can be ignored. According to the US Postal Inspection Service website, no customers or text messages will be sent without a customer first requesting the service with their tracking number. Even if emails were requested, those correspondences would never contain a link, the agency said.

“If you did not initiate the tracking request for a specific package directly from USPS and it contains a link: Do not click on the link,” the Postal Inspection Service wrote.

Black Friday shopping (Daniella Heminghaus/USA TODAY NETWORK/File)

3. Charity fraud

Thieves often impersonate known charities via email, text message, or fake websites. They can also fabricate charities for noble causes to trick unsuspecting donors into misspending their hard-earned money.

One way to spot a fake charity is the way it corresponds with you, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Although charities are exempt from the national Do Not Call list, they must comply if you ask them to stop calling you, the FCC wrote on its website.

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The agency also recommends checking phone numbers and URLs of charities before donating to them. Services like Norton Genie or even Google and Reddit.com/r/scams can be helpful tools.

The FBI’s Philadelphia office wrote in a warning to consumers that donations should always be made by check or credit card.

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“If an organization asks you for a donation in the form of cash, gift cards, virtual currency, or bank transfer, it is likely a scam,” the agency wrote.

Donors should be wary of charities claiming to help victims of recent high-profile disasters and double-check the charity’s name to ensure it does not have a “copycat” name.