Recommendations to avoid being scammed during online Christmas shopping

 

Christmas has become a prime setting for online fraud, due to the amount of shopping that takes place, and some people take advantage of this to launch scams adapted to this time of year. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has released a series of recommendations and warnings to ensure that nothing goes wrong this holiday season.

Fraudsters are “persistent in their attempts to deceive” users through a variety of channels, including text messages, malicious emails, malicious web pages and social media posts with false information, according to a note from Meta, with care being taken at this time to avoid being deceived.

Some attempts begin before the Christmas shopping season begins. For this reason, Meta recommends paying attention to emails and text messages received, avoiding sharing personal information and checking whether the website you are shopping on is trustworthy.

In addition to these more general tips, Meta adds others that are more relevant to this time of year. This is the case of fake Christmas gift boxes, advertisements that are shared through posts on social networks, promising gifts and prizes that do not exist. If someone comments on these posts, the scammers redirect them to messaging applications or Google websites, where they ask for data such as email address, telephone number, address or income level, so that they can be selected to win the prize.

Another scam involves discounted or free Christmas decorations, offering artificial Christmas trees and other decorations at “extremely low” prices. The scammers use videos of real people decorating the premises posted online and add voiceovers generated by artificial intelligence (AI) to describe the products and offers. If someone responds to these ads, they are redirected to websites, some created using Shoptify’s services, to make a fake purchase. Ultimately, the product, which does not exist, never reaches the user.

Meta also mentioned scams based on holiday vouchers. In this case, they follow the same modus operandi as the previous ones: they offer fake gift cards with the aim of tricking users into providing personal information in order to receive them. Specifically, they direct victims to pages that imitate social networks and ask them to fill out a form with their gender, age, income, employment status and level of interest in cryptocurrencies in order to participate in the prize draws. To make the situation more realistic, the websites present fake reviews claiming to have won previous prize draws “even though they thought it was a scam”.

PREVENTION

Firstly, Tobac said it is essential to “think like a hacker” and therefore be especially careful with recurring Christmas themes that can be used as a hook by cybercriminals to lure users into scams. This is the case, for example, with ads related to discounts that are “too good to be true”.

So, while users search for Christmas gifts and offers online, they should be aware of possible phishing attacks in emails and messages, as fraudsters often send their cyberattacks through these formats, pretending to be a well-known brand or even a bank.

In the same vein, sharing personal information on any online platform should also be avoided, as criminals often try to trick people into entering their bank details, for example. This also means that you need to be vigilant when it comes to payment, as they often tempt victims to pay in advance or use payment methods that cannot be reversed.

Anti-scam tools on WhatsApp and Instagram

To avoid falling victim to scams distributed through its main channels, Meta has asked customers to use its latest security tools, launched this year, on both the Facebook Marketplace shopping service and on WhatsApp and Instagram.

In the case of WhatsApp, if you receive a message from an unknown person, a context card appears with additional information about the user who wrote it. The same happens when you are added to an unknown group.

In particular, it details information such as whether the number belongs to a contact stored on the device or whether it is part of a common group. Similarly, in the case of an unknown group, information is displayed on whether it was added by a known contact, who created the group and the description of the group.