Technology Advisor Blog

What's the difference between last minute shoppers and those not investing in cybersecurity for their small to medium sized businesses? Not very much! In both cases, impulsive decision making could potentially drain your finances and blow up in your face because you didn’t take the time to invest in safety protocols.
The holidays require a lot of time obtaining gifts for family and loved ones, and scammers are in the not-so-festive mood to try and drain your bank accounts. Black Friday is coming up with eye-catching sales, scammers are utilizing this time for all tactics to trick you into handing your personal information to them in the veil of receiving the ‘best sale of the year’.

Scams to Look Out For

Black Friday scams are sneaky and can take on many forms in the disguise as sales. Some forms include fake websites designed to steal personal information through impersonation and counterfeit products that are too good to be true. We should be on the lookout for more than ever, we are here to help spread awareness during one of the most chaotic times of the year for retail and shoppers.

The last thing you need during the most wonderful time of year is to fall for a scam and then your finances take a blow. The less stress the better. Listed below are the types of scams that you and your family must avoid this season to keep finances in control and stress managed.

Verification Code Scam

When shopping online, majority of stores have what is called rewards points that help contribute to your purchases, and in some cases reduce price costs if you’ve earned enough. To earn rewards points, you must create an account with the store you enjoy shopping at. This is common practice; however, scammers exploit this once common process by impersonating legitimate companies to trick you into sending personal information in the form of ‘verification steps. If you’re not careful, this can put your financial information and additional passwords at risk.
To reduce the risk of fear this shopping season, here’s how you can avoid this trick and help others along the way:

• Don’t recognize a text message or call? Ignore it, always. If it’s important, contact legitimate seller for additional confirmation.
• There's a link in an email? Go with your gut, don’t open the link. It's likely a phishing scam attempt that is intended to put malware on your devices.
• When it comes to sharing personal information, only share with verified, trusted sources.

Coupon Scams

We all love a good coupon and scammers know this. When Joanne fabrics went out of business, Joanne's experienced scammers impersonating their website by offering too good to be true coupon discounts to its shoppers on top of already reduced sale prices in their final stages as a business. In the end, a lot of folks fell for this scam. Nobody deserves to be scammed, especially during the holidays expressing gratitude. These scams tend to appear in your email inbox with urgent CTA (Call To Action) elements to get you to use the coupon as soon as possible.
How to avoid:

• See a deal that’s too good? It most likely is, be wary when you see deals that make you want to act impulsively.
• First verify the source of coupon, see if it’s consistent on main website.
• Hovering links in email is your best bet. In this case, if you notice weird symbols or elements within, it is likely a scam hidden in plain sight.

Fake order confirmations

Order confirmations are a form of retail therapy. A sign of good things coming very soon when you decide to treat yourself.
There also have been legitimate websites that experienced glitches sending out mass emails of random order confirmations. These occurrences have happened with retailers like Shein and DollsKill to name a few instances, in which they confirmed there was an error within their systems, but nobody was charged.
For scammers wanting YOUR information, it’s purposeful to bait you into checking your recent email notifications. They will create fake email confirmations from legitimate websites to grab your attention, and you will search for your memory if it is a forgotten order. In these cases, its best to practice:

• Check your accounts for any recent confirmations reflecting this recent one.
• Contact company using official channels to confirm further purchases.
• Stay cautious and trust your gut-an accidental click will cause long term problems.
• Do NOT click on links you are not familiar with.

Fake Delivery Texts or Notifications

Periodically, you receive a text scam claiming an order failed to deliver to your location. Their next steps require you to click a link to further resolve the issue by rescheduling or paying extra fees for delivery. In these cases, these are easy to identify especially if they use a shipping carrier you don’t use often or even hear of.
To avoid, consider the following:

• Delivery services will never ask for financial information to complete a delivery to your location.
• Contact trusted delivery service instead of trusting text link from said phishing email.
• Avoid clicking on links you are not familiar with!

Gift Card and Unusual Payment Method Scams

As mentioned in a previous blog, gift cards are a wonderful idea if you don’t know what to get someone for the holidays. However, scammers in both remote and physical store locations weaponize gift cards by tampering, stealing the pin, erasing funds and leaving you out of the money you paid to activate the card. In other instances, scammers will impersonate high authority figures asking for a favor to pick up gift cards, give the pin numbers as a form of transaction. Usually these are easy to identify, but in times of high increased shopping times, consider the following:

• Paying with a gift card is never the only option as a form of payment.
• Purchase from trusted retailers. In stores, go for the few in the back as the front ones can have the possibility of being tampered with.
• If you feel as if the gift card you purchased is suspicious, contact the company to proceed with the next steps.

Fake Failed Payment Notifications

Failed payment notifications can be nerve wracking when it can imply you owe money. These messages usually contain a link claiming this will help you and the company further resolve invoice issues. The link they use will be used to extract your financial and personal information for malicious intent.

How to avoid this scam type:

• Check for a secure website with HTTPS in the URL.
• Avoid placing any information on websites deemed unsafe upon arrival.
• Make payments through reputable resources, they never send you through text messages.
  
  
  

Fraudulent Social Media Advertisements

Social media has become a mixture of following your friends and loved ones, but also constant advertising of products based on your preferences and searching habits. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok have been increased more for shopping, sometimes in instances where they sell products at very low process to lure you in. If you’re not careful, they can turn into counterfeit products, false advertising or never deliver to your house for months. Have you or your family ever run into these instances, consider the following to identify and proactively react:

• Be wary of deals that are unrealistically low priced no matter what it is.
• Do not rush into making a purchase, do your research on the brand for legitimacy.
• With AI used in our everyday life, always be on the lookout if sponsorships look to be AI-generated.
  
  
  

Fake Reviews to Look Legitimate for Consumers

Following into AI usage, scammers have maneuvered to have reviews appear legitimate but sometimes AI generated and using bots to mimic real people. Positive fake reviews are used to convince you to try out a product based on reliability and quality. Here’s a few red flags if you are concerned about the legitimacy of a product:

• Look for verified purchase labels.
• Check the spelling and authenticity of these review responses, they could come off as generic and soulless.
• Check multiple platforms for any changes in consistency.
• Even typing [Insert Website Title Here] with legitimacy and see what comes up.

Ekaru Tips to Stay Protected

While shopping online, you’re focusing on all the gift ideas you want to get for family or loved ones this season. For scammers, the holidays are a field day for those trying to do quick shopping with impactful pricing. Our team at Ekaru is here to help ensure your devices are safe and your mind is fresh with the knowledge to identify scams vs legitimate shopping experiences.
Paying attention to quality and structure will be the difference by identifying a scam in real time or falling for a scam.

• Shop with a secure browser: Our services can provide 24/7 monitoring of your systems to ensuring if there is any unusual activity, it is stopped expeditiously and from further entering your system.
• Web Filtering: Our systems ensure you are using trusted websites and not falling victim to a scammers trap by heading to a mimicked website designed to steal your personal information and credit card info. Ensuring the link is verified so you can shop with peace of mind, and your devices are protected.
• Use Secure Payment Methods: Using credit cards provides stronger fraud protection than with a direct debit card. In the case of a fraudulent attempt, your credit card can be disputed and receive a new card in the mail so scammers now have an invalid card during shopping season.
• Cybersecurity awareness: Our cybersecurity awareness training can help identify threats and provide you with the education to see through scam attempts, handle them swiftly while going about your day. The first step to safety is education.

What’s supposed to be the best time of year and the highest sales all year for retail businesses, is a scammer’s field day to sabotage and steal vital financial information from individuals. The best way to combat scammers, is to stay ahead of the curve of phishing attempts, texts, emails, phone calls and fake coupons. Our team is here to help ensure your devices do not fall victim to ransomware or identify before they even reach you.

Interested in putting your staff and business in better hands going into the new year? Lets connect!