Aren’t the holidays grand? All that togetherness, eating, shopping, gift giving, email and text scams, deepfake deals, trick websites, and people snatching gifts right off your front steps. Okay, perhaps it’s a mixed bag. What you need is a quick reminder and some tactics for avoiding all the bad so you can enjoy the holiday season good.
A recent study from online security company McAfee found that over half of all Americans have received scam package delivery messages (or they claim “delivery problems”). Credit card problem scam messages were delivered to well over a third of all Americans. A similar number saw scam messages relating to their Amazon shopping activity.
It’s a Black Friday holiday shopping jungle out there.
Start with a cleanup
Scammers target us year-round, with extra effort reserved for the holidays. By sharing less, you can undermine their efforts starting now and in the months ahead (until it’s suddenly the holidays again). Stop taking those social media surveys that ask you to name your favorite color, first pet, first car, or hometown. Any of these details could be used to help them steal your identity or, more likely, be used to convince you that a text or email is really from a trusted entity or friend.
Go back through your social media accounts and delete any posts that shared more about you than you should’ve and remain more of a mystery in the future. It’ll all make you less of a target during this holiday shopping season.
Nothing is real
Emails promising great deals from your favorite retail sites could be too good to be true. Scammers are creating fake sites that look like the real thing but are designed solely to scam you, steal your information, and more.
Instead of following links from unexpected emails or texts, always type in the URLs for your favorite shopping sites. If you end up on a questionable site, check the URL. Instead of “Amazon.com,” you might notice it’s “Amazon.eo.” Also, take a look at the product photos on the site. If they look low-quality, they might’ve been lifted from somewhere else.
Watch out for typos and misspellings, which are often a dead giveaway for fake sites. If the prices are too good to be true, well, they’re probably too good to be true.
If there’s no recognizable and secure way to pay, run away.
Perhaps the easiest way to avoid stumbling on these fake sites is to find your Best Black Friday Deals through reputable sites like the one you’re on right now.
Your package is on the way
By now, most of us have received emails or texts telling us our package is on the way, but there’s a problem. The possible gift won’t be delivered until you provide some additional information. Sometimes, there are links to follow, and other times, there’s a phone number to call.
First of all, keep careful records of everything you order this holiday season. If you receive one of these emails, check that order list. Second, visit the original retailer and check your order status there.
If you have a shipping tracking number for FedEx, DHL, UPS, or USPS, visit the appropriate shipment site and enter your tracking number there. That’ll give you an accurate status for the package.
You owe us
Many of the texts I now receive, aside from the random ones that sound like they’re from a trusted friend (they’re not), claim that I owe Amazon hundreds of dollars for an order I never made.
Again, the easiest way to check this out is by visiting Amazon.com and checking your account and order status. Amazon keeps perfect records, and you’ll quickly see that you don’t owe them a thing – unless, of course, you have ordered a huge Amazon haul and in that case…what did you buy me?
Trouble on your account
Some banks will send you an alert when there’s suspicious activity on your account, especially during this busy holiday season. Credit card breaches often lead to someone buying gifts with your card number, and they usually do so in a place far from where you live, which is how the bank notices (virtual credit card numbers are one easy way to protect yourself when shopping online).
Even so, if and when those alerts arrive, no matter the text source, never respond to it or even call a provided number. Always go back to your bank’s site and call the numbers you have there or in any documentation the bank sent directly to your home.
Bad advice
A recent study claims that 54% of Gen Z shoppers will get their buying advice from TikTok, and one-quarter of them buy based on influencer recommendations. And you know what else is on the rise? Deepfake product and shopping recommendations. I’ve seen a few of these, like “Oprah” hawking hair oil and “Selena Gomez” trying to get a warehouse full of Le Creuset pots off her hands. In both cases, the scammers are using AI video and audio technology to create fake video pitches.
Scammers know how much people rely on TikTok and YouTube videos for product guidance, so the number of scams will surely rise. Just assume that most of the celeb- and influencer-backed deals you see are either fake or shady (with influencers sometimes being the latter).
Also, talk to your teens about trustworthy sources and where they should and shouldn’t spend their holiday dollars.
And….it’s gone
We all get packages delivered to our porches throughout the year, but the number of cardboard boxes on your stoops will vastly increase in the holiday months, and they are catnip for porch pirates.
A Security.org study found that porch pirates stole $12B worth of packages in the US in 2023, adding that 58M Americans were affected.
What’s worse is that some porch pirates are no longer just cruising neighborhoods looking for unattended packages. They’re stealing tracking numbers and using that info to know exactly when the products are dropped on stoops so they can swoop in and steal them before you even get the notification.
There are a few ways to combat this. One is to watch for delivery alerts on your phone or in email and act fast. Another is to install one of the best video doorbells that can keep watch for deliveries and also people showing up to try and steal the packages (you can even yell at them through the built-in mic).
Finally, you could buy one of a growing crop of Package Delivery Boxes. They’re essentially large lockboxes for packages with delivery lids and locked compartments underneath that collect the packages. After delivery, you’ll receive a notification and, in some cases, a special pin that you can use or share with someone else to unlock the box and retrieve your packages.
The most sophisticated ones can run your a few hundred dollars, but considering what you can lose, it’s probably money well spent.
If you follow these tips, stay alert, share little, and trust even less, you could have a great Black Friday holiday buying season.
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lance.ulanoff@futurenet.com (Lance Ulanoff)
