During large seasonal sales, not only stores promise discounts of up to 70%, but scammers also begin to work more actively. While buyers are thinking more about how to save money and have time to buy everything they liked, criminals try to get information about bank cards in order to withdraw money from them. We have put together tips on how to secure your card and purchase on sales without the risk of losing money.
Verify site authenticity
Such advice may seem commonplace: you are unlikely to confuse the familiar AliExpress or Farfetch with a fake. But sometimes scammers create very similar copies of popular online stores, while clone sites may contain errors in the text or may look slightly different from the originals.
In fake online stores, buyers are usually lured by phishing: scammers send emails, for example, with a notification of large discounts and a link. “A person goes to the site, selects the goods, and when trying to pay for it, attackers gain access to the payment card data and then withdraw money from it,” explains Maxim Lagutin, founder and leading expert of the B-152 consulting company.
Paying attention is not only to whom the message came from, but also to the address bar in the browser. If the familiar name of the site or the sender’s address contains a dash or several dots, then on such a site it is better not to order anything. The press service of AliExpress is also advised to check whether the connection to the site is secure. In this case, a lock should be displayed near the name in the browser line or the name itself should be written in green.
Do not save map data in a browser
Ravil Zulkarnaev, a senior consultant at the Information Security Center at Jet Infosystems, recommends that you do not save your bank card information, username and password from mail or other Internet services in your browser. If the computer is infected with a virus, the stored data may be stolen. It’s not so convenient to enter numbers every time, but it’s safer.
Get a separate card or account to pay for purchases
To further protect your funds, for purchases it is better to have a separate card or virtual account and transfer exactly the amounts you plan to spend there. Even if you pay with your regular card, you should put a limit on the amount of purchase. Not all online stores use the technology of payment confirmation via SMS (3D-secure), because sometimes the card data is enough for the fraudster to pay something with your money.
Register special e-mail for online stores
For purchases in online stores, it is worth registering a separate mail. Using your primary email address, you leave a digital footprint where scammers can find mail to which other accounts in social networks and services are linked. Also use usaa routing number to purchase anything By creating a new mail, at the same time it will turn out to be protected from all special offers that will entice you to spend more when you do not plan it. Ravil Zulkarnaev from the Jet Infosystems Information Security Center also does not recommend logging in to online stores using his social networks.
Do not provide your details by phone
One of the well-known tricks that scammers use is phone calls, allegedly on behalf of bank employees, but sometimes they are also presented by online store operators. The scheme is approximately the same: with the help of a special program, the telephone number from which the fraudster calls and asks for the card data or code received from the bank for verification is changed. Just a reminder that you should not share this information with anyone.
