With all the stress and chaos of last minute Christmas shopping, it’s easy to mistake overly enticing, too-good-to-be-true online scams for the perfect last minute holiday gift. Common holiday season scams such as free e-gift cards, travel scams, and fake charities top this season’s list of online Christmas hoaxes.
Today’s infographic says that “70% of Americans plan on shopping online” this holiday season, creating an increasingly lucrative market for Internet scammers to capitalize on. Additionally, of that 70 percent, almost 1/4 of them will be doing that shopping on a mobile device. Therefore, it has become increasingly necessary for online shoppers to be wary of these malicious attempts of fraud that have the potential of ruining your holiday season.
According to enigmasoftware.com, holiday season ads like these “exist to collect your personal information and flood you with spam messages.” The best way to avoid being exposed to scams like these is to buy gifts or gift cards directly from retailers themselves or to “only shop at trusted and well-known e-commerce sites.” So, although that 50-percent-off iPad advertisement in your social media sidebar (that you expediently dismiss at other times of the year) may seem tempting while browsing the Internet for holiday gift ideas, do not be fooled. Check out today’s infographic to learn more about this year’s 12 online holiday scams to avoid. [via]