MADISON, WI (WSAU-WXPR) — The busiest online shopping day of the season is upon us.
Cyber Monday, a day online retailers devote to deep discounts on some of the most sought-after gifts for the gift-giving season, is this Monday. While many places have tightened security and checked it twice in preparation for the millions of transactions that will take place, the Department of Ag, Trade, and Consumer Protection’s Jerad Albracht says you still need to guard your personal info.
One of the more recent scams involves an offer for what looks like a free gift card, one of the most popular gifts of the season. Albracht tells WXPR radio in Rhinelander it could come in your inbox or through social media, with an offer for the card at the end of a survey. “We want people to be really leery of those types of things. In some situations, the survey may be looking to harvest personal information,” he says. “In other situations, you may be clicking a link that is going to take you to a malicious website that will infect your computer. Anything gift card related is a ploy that the scammers will try to use,” he added.
Other scams can happen after your gifts ship in the form of a phishing message appearing to be from the US Postal Service, UPS, or FedEx. Albracht says, in this case, the scammers will try to tell you there’s a problem with a recent order. ” [They’ll] ask you to open a link or attachment to find out more information. Those are some actions that will probably lead you to download some sort of malware.”
Industry analysts are expecting some $7.7 billion in online transactions will take place this Monday. Once again tech gifts are expected to drive the market, with deep discounts on items like TVs, gaming devices and computers, smartphones, and home tech items such as smart TV adapters and Amazon Alexa devices.
