The holiday’s period is one of those periods where the combined spending exceeds and sometimes break all of the records. This is the time of the year where almost all of the brands and retailers put a lot of discount on their items which causes people to go and shop as many things as they can. And with the evolution, our ways of shopping have changed remarkably. Just a decade ago, people mostly opted to go out physically to shop for items while this is the age where shopping is done through internet by making use of either laptop or mobile. And to some part, it has created a lot of convenience for people but let’s not forget, it also has breed-ed a huge rise in the scamming world.
Well, this should not come as a surprise for you because it comes as an attraction for all the scammers to plot their tricks and make huge loads of money. As people are always eager to land a huge discount, they make use of this phenomena to their advantage and have us believed and tricked into buying something which is nothing but a scam and as a result they end up getting our money while we end up getting merely nothing but regret and sorrow!
So, we thought why we should not guide you through some of the most common of scams that these scammers use widely in the holiday period. We will not only be talking about the scams only but will also guide you through the ways with which you can help yourself and avoid getting cheated by them. So, let’s start:
The Ad Poisoning Scheme
Here, ad agencies are mostly at fault because they are the ones who are led into believing that the ad they (scammers) are going to post will be legit one. But unfortunately this is not the case as these ad are linked to nefarious websites from where malware and viruses are installed. Among the most common viruses that are left include Cryptowall.
Solution:
You can choose to disable Adobe Flash player because you get a lot of ads when watching video. If you can’t do that, then change the settings to “click to play”. Along with that, keep all of the security software up-to-date.
Retail sites as a source of Phishing
It is one of the major ways to make you lose out on your money. The cyber criminals attack the common users on sites such as Amazon or eBay by phishing them with the claims that the account that they use has been hacked. By doing so – they intend to get your payment card information as they will tell that in order to recover your account you will need to insert your card number and this is where every money of yours will be wiped off!
Solution:
The solution is simple – if you see mails of such kind, just simply remove or delete the mail right away and change your filer setting again! Even don’t open or click on any link from these type of suspected mails.
How often do you visit Facebook? Chances are that you visit it quite often or maybe quite a lot, no? Well, like you the scammers and the cybercriminals also make frequent visit to Facebook in order to make a fool out of the simple users of Facebook. Basically, what they do is compel the common users to install an add-in in Facebook which basically is not coming from the Facebook itself. Most of the people fall in the trap because the add-in promise some amazing features which Facebook do not offer, for instance a dislike button. When it has been installed, they hack the account which they use to get all of your personal information.
Solution:
Make sure you from time to time review the network and security settings of all of your social media platforms including Facebook. Adding to that, make sure that you have installed or restricted plugins because you never know which one are the legit ones!
So, these 3 are some of the most common practices used by the cybercriminals and scammers with which they get hold of your confidential information and then use it against you. So make sure you are aware of them and have taken measures in order to avoid them!
