As the holiday shopping season has officially opened, we’ve had “Black Friday” and “Small Business Saturday” – so tomorrow is “Cyber Monday.”
Cyber Monday was created by retailers to encourage people to shop online, explains Wikipedia. It’s a marketing term for e-commerce transactions on the Monday after Thanksgiving in the United States, and it debuted in November of 2005.
Cyber Monday has become the online equivalent to Black Friday, offering a way for smaller retail websites to compete with larger chains.
But to paraphrase Spiderman’s Uncle Ben, ‘with great convenience comes great vulnerability.’ Watch out for Cyber Monday scams.
In Jeff Criley’s “The Rundown,” he points out that huge bargains should never have strings attached. Also look out for improper grammar and spelling on a website, to get a hint that it’s illegitimate.
And when you get an email supposedly from a site that you are familiar with, pay attention to how they’re communicating. If there’s something odd in how they address you, like different from your usual salutation, be suspicious.
Even if a website may look safe, it could be a spoof. It’s better to go directly to a known website for deals rather than using a search engine.
Look any url’s that you can. They usually need to refer to the company and not a subtle or completely different name (like scipost instead of sciotopost), or a different domain (like .biz instead of .com), or different country (like .de for Germany or .ru for Russia),
You should also avoid using public Wi-Fi since hackers could track your online activity.
And if you know you have a virus on your computer, use another device…or just shop in-person.
