What you should know about online shopping scams this holiday season

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — The holiday season is a prime time for hackers since so many spend time online shopping searching for the best deals. During this time, many will get emails and texts alerting us to deals, but is it legit?

The saying goes, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is, and with the increase in people online shopping, there’s an increase in scams.

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“The biggest problem, though, is that it’s the same kind of scams we see all year long,” Denise Bergstrom of Franklin University said. “It’s just that because of our rush, feeling overwhelmed, feeling stressed. For some people, there’s the emotional issues with the holiday, we don’t take the time to be vigilant when we’re doing any kind of online checking of links or emails.”

More people fall victim to scams this time of year. The best thing to do is plan what you want to buy and go directly to that site, do not click on a link.

“If you do click on a link, read the link. If you’re looking at a consumer retailer and it’s not a ‘dot.com,’ don’t click it. If you’re looking at, say, your bank is offering some kind of special money market or something like that, never click it,” Bergstrom said.

One thing that’s popular now among hackers is something called scraping, a software program that can go and capture anything that is visible online.

“So, if I pick a major retailer that’s selling clothing, for example, and I want to try and trick you into clicking on it I’m going to fish you and get you to click on an email that I’m going to create,” said Bergstrom. “I’m going to steal their logo, I’m going to steal current ads. I’m going to steal things that look legitimate, things that I have literally just scraped are copied, pasted or snipped from their website and pasted into my email. That gives it a little level of legitimacy.”

If you think you may have fallen victim to a scam, there are forms that you can fill out with the FBI and with your banks. The biggest thing you can do is keep track of what you ordered and check your bank statements.

“Don’t stop being enthusiastic about the holidays. Don’t stop trying to make the world a better place. Just be very cautious in who you’re throwing money at and what it is that you’re doing in those endeavors so that you don’t become a victim with good intentions,” said Bergstrom.

Also, be aware of porch pirates. If you’re waiting on packages to arrive, keep track of them and know when they’re expected to arrive.

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