Protect yourself from Black Friday scammers with these 3 tips

Black Friday is the perfect time to pick up Christmas gifts at a discount. It’s also the most likely day of the year to fall victim to a scam online, according to the director of Norton’s Scam Research Labs.

About 50% of online consumers are defrauded each year by various schemes to steal money or data, Norton’s Leyla Bilge told Fox News Digital. Of those robberies, she said, 30% happen on Black Friday, 16% happen on Christmas Day, 14% happen on Christmas Eve; and 11% take place 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 shared tips on how to evade each one.

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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 fraud

Bilge said “hundreds” of fake stores pop up online every year.

“It’s very easy to create a fake e-shop that looks really realistic. The look and feel is amazing. You won’t be able to spot it really easily. So even us, sometimes we struggle to find out if something is real or not,” Bilge said. “You have to think twice about fraud because they’re really complicated and sophisticated now, especially with AI. Things are getting a lot more powerful.”

But common sense, new tools and a few tactics can be used to spot them.

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

“If something sells for, say, $100, you’re not going to get it for $10,” Bilge said. “So it’s not like you’re never going to get (a) 90% off discount, but typically you get these kinds of crazy discounts on sites like that.”

Fake e-stores, fake charities and “smishing” are some of the most common methods scammers use to take advantage of holiday shoppers. (Kurt Knutsson)

Often, Bilge said, payment pages on these fake sites will provide useful clues.

“Typically on the first page, you want them to always tell you that you’re going to be able to pay with anything, PayPal, with Google, Google Pay or Amazon or Apple Pay or, you know, Visa, Mastercard and watched,” said Bilge. “But when you actually check out … they’ll either ask you to pay with a gift card because it’s hard for us to track … or they’ll tell you to do it with PayPal.”

“If you see these kinds of discrepancies between the first page and the last page, you have to be very careful,” she continued.

Taking a look at the URL of a website can also help, Bilge said.

“Let’s say (the fake e-shop) could be an Amazon knockoff,” she said. “You might want to go and check if the site name actually fits the brand, because let’s say you wanted Amazon.com, (their website could be) Amazonbeautifulverycool.com, something like this.”

Being aware before taking advantage of an attractive deal can save your wallet and private information, she said, and it can also vet the seller yourself if you’ve never shopped there before.

“You might want to be really careful and cross-check with 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.”

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

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Shoppers can also crowdsource to spot cons. Reddit’s scam subreddit, Reddit.com/r/scams, has nearly 1 million subscribers, many of whom will quickly answer questions about suspicious sites from experience or using their own technical know-how.

A quick Google search will often reveal fake e-shops as well. The Better Business Bureau also has a searchable list of accredited and non-accredited companies that can be used.

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

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

2. “Smishing” package delivery scams

Many consumers receive a larger volume of packages around the holiday season when ordering gifts from friends and family.

But this makes them more susceptible 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’ll tell you there’s a problem with your payment or you have to make an extra payment so they can actually steal your money,” Bilge said. “Or they could try to actually compromise some personal information so they can use it for another type of attack that might happen later.”

One method of spotting these scams is to take a closer look at the phone number or email address from which the correspondence comes.

Smishing is a scam where a fraudster will try to impersonate a reputable company via text message. (CyberGuy.com)

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

In general, emails like this can be ignored. According to the US Postal Inspection Service’s website, it will not send customers or text messages without a customer first requesting the service with their tracking number. Even if emails are requested, the agency said, those correspondences will never contain a link.

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

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

3. Charity fraud

Thieves will often impersonate well-known charities via email or text, or by using fake websites. They can also completely make up charities with noble causes to trick unsuspecting donors into misusing their hard-earned money.

One way to spot a fake charity is the way they correspond 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 suggests verifying phone numbers and URLs for charities before donating to them. Services like Norton Genie or even Google and Reddit.com/r/scams can be useful tools to do so.

The FBI’s Philadelphia bureau 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 to donate through cash, gift cards, virtual currency or wire transfer, it’s 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 name of the charity to make sure it doesn’t have a “copycat name”.