On December 7, 2020 Jennifer Leach, Associate Director, Division of Consumer & Business Education, FTC posted some tips to stay safe while shopping online this season. She wrote:
"On this 2nd day of Consumer Protection, it’s all about online shopping. Because that’s what we can do this year, right? (OK, it’s a lot of what we do any year.)
If you’re spending some of your hard-earned money online, make sure you know where it’s going. Because it’s pretty easy for scammers to put up a fake website that looks a lot like a real one. A scam website may show up in your search results, or scammers may send you a phishing email that looks like it came from a company you trust, but actually takes you to a rip-off site. They’ll be happy to take your money and leave you with nothing. So:
Instead of clicking on a link, say in an email, type in the store’s URL yourself, so you know where you’re headed.
Only pay on sites with URLs that starts with https. That ‘s’ means your transaction is encrypted…but scammers know how to encrypt, too. So don’t believe that a site is the real deal just because the site uses encryption.
Pay by credit card. It gives you way more protections if something goes wrong.
Check out more about how to shop safely online.
And if you spot a scammy site or you don’t get what you ordered, tell the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. "
Stay safe out there, especially online!
Happy Holidays to everyone!