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This article is from Trend Micro
There are only a few days to go until Halloween – have you prepared the decorations and your scary Halloween costumes? You still have some time to make those last-minute purchases, but please keep an eye out for Halloween online shopping scams!
We’ve already detected 509,507 scam websites featuring Halloween shopping sales this month. Scammers have started early to spread links to scam online shops via text messages that promote various Halloween special sale campaigns:
Below are several checkpoints that you can pay attention to see if an online shop is safe:
Before you click on any links, always CHECK if it’s safe. How? You can look up suspicious URLs at Whois for website details, for example:
(1) Does the domain country of the website match its base?
(2) How long has the website been registered?
(3) Is the registrant’s contact information hidden?
Too Annoying to check that many details? Use Trend Micro Check to combat scams with ease! (It’s 100% FREE)
Trend Micro Check is a browser extension and mobile app for detecting scams, phishing attacks, malware, and dangerous links — and it’s FREE!
After you’ve pinned the Trend Micro Check extension, it will block dangerous sites automatically! (Available on Safari, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Edge).
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Check out this page for more information on Trend Micro Check.
Is the offer too good to be true?
Does the website take electronic transfer, cryptocurrency, prepaid and gift cards, or cash on delivery (COD) ONLY? If so, it is highly likely that it’s a scam. For example, many scam online shops only accept PayPal as a payment method:
Note: There are still exceptions – these common payment methods don’t mean the site is 100% secure. How?
In some cases the merchant will ‘refund’ money to buyers, claiming technical difficulties with the original payment. After the initial refund, the scammer (‘merchant’) will ask the buyer to use payment methods OTHER THAN the one listed on the website – such as bank transfers or APPs like “Venmo” or “Zelle”. This example shows how once a customer sent out money, the scammer disappeared. Beware!
Content should be 100% accurate on reputable and well-designed websites! Are there a lot of typos and unnatural wording? If there are you should reconsider if you want to spend money on the site.
Does the website provide full and valid contact details? You can check if the contact information matches the domain of the URL, or you can Google the address to see if the company really exists.
As ever, if you’ve found this article an interesting and/or helpful read, please do SHARE with friends and family to help keep the online community secure and protected.
Souce:Pexels.com
