Article: Stay Safe Shopping Online This Year with These Tips!

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Strings of streetlights, even stoplights

Blink a bright red and green

As the shoppers rush home with their treasures…

Silver bells, silver bells

It’s Christmas time in the city

Ring-a-ling, hear them ring

Soon, it will be Christmas day

“Silver Bells” by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans

The Christmas carol, “Silver Bells,” made famous by Bing Crosby and Carol Richards, captures the excitement and urgency of people shopping during the Holiday Season that officially kicks off after Thanksgiving in the US. With all the joy and promise of finding lovely gifts for friends and loved ones during this time, financial pressures also steer shoppers to look for good bargains and deals to stretch their holiday budgets and complete wish lists. Many criminals have developed ways to con and steal from fervent holiday shoppers in this space between budgets and wishes. In addition to traditional scams such as coercing people to donate to fake charities or theft of package delivery, thieves now have many technology-aided techniques to steal from unsuspecting shoppers.

In recent years, with the help of technology, including artificial intelligence such as large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Bard, scammers have used these tools to help them write compelling scripts and compose official-looking documents from government agencies, banks, and utilities. With these scripts and emails, thieves will contact many people, hoping that someone will believe the scammer. The same holds for criminals targeting shoppers.

In some cases, thieves will impersonate a retailer, for example, and pressure their victim to confirm their bank account numbers and passwords in order to get the best deal, but once compromised, the thieves will empty the account without a trace. In one recent story, a woman found a good deal online for discount soft drinks. Once she clicked on the deal, she received a communication from WhatsApp suggesting she download a shopping app to access the best deal. She did download the app, which asked for personal information, including direct withdrawal from her bank account. Eventually, the scammers withdrew nearly $200,000 from her bank account, money she has not yet recouped. (asiaone.com) Similar scams will confront eager shoppers this holiday season. Never supply your bank account information to an app. Instead, pay with credit cards or have your bank make the payments.

Additionally, contact the vendor directly by phone to verify its legitimacy. Also, banks and government agencies will never ask you over the phone or online to supply personal information such as social security numbers or passwords. If a vendor does ask for your personal information, consider this a big red flag.

With LLMs, thieves can also spin up legitimate-looking websites with convincing product descriptions that offer popular products at steeply discounted prices. These fake e-commerce sites will use familiar logos and look like legitimate sites. Such sites seek to steal shoppers’ money and personal information. For example, inspect the URL if a site pops up on a Google search that advertises a tempting deal. First, a legitimate URL will start with the letters https: No https: indicates an illegitimate address. Also, check to see if the address contains a legitimate company name followed by “.com” or “.net.” Spoofed online stores often have strange URLs not connected to the name of the actual store. If the deal looks outrageously good, check it out carefully.

Another type of holiday fraud involves gift card scams. Gift cards make for convenient presents to those far away or for whom you may not know exactly what they would like, and many retailers offer gift cards in accessible displays near the cash registers. However, recent reports detail how some fraudsters will take gift cards from the display, copy the numbers and PIN, and put them back on the shelf carefully repackaged. When an unsuspecting customer purchases the gift card as a present, the thief will drain the card before it even reaches the gifttee. (abcnews.com) Look very carefully at any gift cards you purchase to ensure they have their original packaging and the PIN has not been revealed.

The Holidays approach with all the fun and joy of the season, including finding gifts for the special people in our lives. With tight budgets comes the natural inclination to find great deals on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or any time when shopping over the Holidays. Thieves know this too and will try many ways to steal the money you have set aside for presents for your loved ones. Beware of prices that look too good to be true, apps asking for your personal information, and gift cards that may give your money to a crook, not that special someone. With just a little diligence, you can have a wonderful and safe Holiday shopping experience.

Dr. Smith’s career in scientific and information research spans the areas of bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, toxicology, and chemistry. He has published a number of peer-reviewed scientific papers. He has worked over the past seventeen years developing advanced analytics, machine learning, and knowledge management tools to enable research and support high-level decision making. Tim completed his Ph.D. in Toxicology at Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of Washington.

You can buy his book on Amazon in paperback and in kindle format here.