With holiday shopping in full swing, scammers will try to take advantage and take your money and personal information while you look for gifts for your loved ones.
Here are some tips to help you avoid a shopping
scammer,
·
Research unfamiliar brands or
websites. You may find a good deal for an item that you want
to purchase on a website that is unfamiliar to you. Do a web search with the company’s
name or website’s name and terms like “review,” “scam,” or “complaint.” For example-
“Special Good Deals complaint.” Then see what people have to say about the
website.
·
Look for misspellings in the URL.
Scammers often try to mimic legitimate, known websites not only with the
graphics and layout of the site, but also with the URL. For example, “acehardware.com”
might be misspelled with “acehardwear.com” by a scammer. Another trick is to
use a subdomain. For example, a scammer might use “netflix.com.movies.com” for their
fake website, hoping that you won’t notice that “movies.com” is the real domain
name. You can check out if a site is safe by using Google’s Safe Browsing Tool,
https://transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search,
You can check out when a website was created ICANN Lookup site, https://lookup.icann.org/en. A new
website or recent copyright date indicates the website is a scam.
·
Search the website for an address or
phone number. First, if there is no address or phone
number, that might be an indication that the website is fake. Second, if you
find an address and/or a phone number, you can check to ensure that the address
is legitimate through a search of it with a mapping app such as Google Maps,
and you can do a search of the phone number to ensure that it is genuine.
·
Pay with a credit card.
Don’t pay with a debit card or via gift card, wire transfer, or cryptocurrency
such as Bitcoin. Debit card payments take money directly out of your checking
account, so you are not protected from fraud. Payments by gift cards, wire
transfers, and cryptocurrencies have become indicators of scams.
·
Look for delivery, exchange, refund,
and return policies. If the sight does not have these
policies, or if they are vague, go somewhere else to make your purchase. Also,
legitimate online shopping websites should have detailed complaint or dispute handling
policies in case something goes wrong with your order.
If something goes wrong with an online order, for
example you paid for a purchase but don’t receive anything and you suspect the
website is fraudulent, report the occurrence to,
·
Better Business Bureau- https://www.bbb.org/file-a-complaint
·
Federal Trade Commission- https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/ or
call 877-FTC-Help
·
FBI- https://www.ic3.gov/Home/ComplaintChoice/default.aspx
Many online shopping transactions are conducted through
social media, including Facebook.
·
Facebook- If you encounter an
advertisement that violates Facebook’s policies go to this link for instructions
on how to file a complaint, https://www.facebook.com/business/help/162606073801742
·
Instagram- To report abuse and spam on Instagram
go to, https://help.instagram.com/165828726894770
Verify:
Federal Trade Commission:
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/online-shopping
AARP:
https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2019/online-shopping.html
Better Business Bureau:
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