The Yuletide Holidays Are Here – Part Two!

In my last article, I discussed two ways that criminals can potentially ruin your holiday cheer. In this article, I will identify three additional ways this can happen and what you can be mindful of to avoid becoming a victim. 

   During times of the year, such as the yuletide season, financial donations to nonprofit organizations, package delivery and travel tend to be high. Criminals will try to take advantage of this by promoting specific scams to include charity fraud, delivery scams and travel scams. They typically will use social engineering tactics to lure you into their web of deceit in the following ways:

Social Engineering Tactics

   Scammers who engage in social engineering tactics rely on your willingness to share information with them. They use their social skills to extract information from you that will gain them access to your computer, bank account, credit card or any other resource that will result in them getting your money. 

   They can accomplish this via email (phishing,) text messaging (smishing,) or voice communications (vishing) with the goal to gain access to financial information to do you harm. Avoid clicking on links in unsolicited emails and be wary of email attachments.  If the email appears to come from a friend or business, call them first to verify it was them. As the FTC website notes ( https://bit.ly/3tmAk8B), if you receive any of the following:

• Saying they’ve noticed some suspicious activity or log-in attempts — they haven’t.
• Claiming there’s a problem with your account or your payment information — there isn’t.
• Saying you need to confirm some personal or financial information — you don’t.
• Including an invoice you don’t recognize — it’s fake.
• Wanting you to click on a link to make a payment —the link has malware.
• Saying you’re eligible to register for a government refund — it’s a scam.
• Offering a coupon for free stuff — it’s not real.

  Be suspicious of unsolicited phone calls, visits, texts, or email messages from individuals asking about financial, private, or personal information. Do not send any sensitive information via the Internet without checking to see if the website is secure, commonly indicated by the “https://” before the web address.  

Travel Scams:

   Many times, travel scams will show up in the form of online ads for “free” vacations or via emails, phone calls or text messages with a notification that you have won a vacation.  As a part of redeeming this “free” offer, you may be required to pay the fees or taxes associated with the vacation offer. Other travel-related scams may involve vacation rentals, cruises, or travel discounts. The best way to avoid becoming a victim is to ignore any communication that is not a result of a direct inquiry you made to a reputable company. 

   If you receive such solicitations or realize you are a victim, report the incident to reportfraud.ftc.gov.  This will help the FTC track patterns of fraud, which can lead to investigations and potentially stop fraudulent schemes from causing further harm. Your report also will contribute to a larger database that aids in consumer protection efforts, helping to inform and safeguard others in the community. The FTC does not resolve individual complaints, but the information you provide can be used in broader efforts to enforce consumer protection laws and advocate for policy changes that benefit all of us. 

Package Delivery Scams:

   The recent shutdown due to the pandemic dramatically altered how we shop, with online sales skyrocketing thanks to concerns about the health risks of shopping in brick-and-mortar stores. Post pandemic, we continue to rely on the convenience of having purchases delivered to our doors. Scammers have taken note of this trend and are capitalizing on it. A typical scam might include a text message, email, or phone call, sent by the scammer to you, informing you that you have a package waiting for you or that the delivery service (e.g., FedEx, UPS, or USPS) was unable to deliver a package.

   To get the package delivered, you may be asked to click on a link and “verify” personal information or supply payment information (like a credit card or bank routing number) to reschedule the delivery, ostensibly to “verify” you are the intended recipient. These delivery messages can be quite convincing, but they are fake and generated to attempt to defraud you. To combat this, the FTC offers detailed insights on fake shipping notification emails and text messages, which are particularly relevant during this holiday shopping season. Their advice for how to deal with this kind of scam:

• If you get a message about an unexpected package delivery that tells you to click on a link don’t do it.
• If you think the message might be legitimate, contact the shipping company using a phone number or website you know is real. Don’t use the information in the message.
• If you think it could be about something you recently ordered, go to the site where you bought the item and look up the shipping and delivery status there.

While we want to focus on the positive aspects of the holiday season, maintaining awareness of the ways the “holiday grinches” try to steal our joy, will help keep you and yours in a holly, jolly mood this season.