How to avoid falling for a Black Friday scam

National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB).

The NIFB looked at reports made to Action Fraud during last year’s shopping period, prompting a warning for shoppers to remain vigilant this year.

Read on to find out how to spot and avoid Black Friday scams.

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How to spot and avoid a scam deal

Alongside the NFIB’s data, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has warned that AI technology including large language models - where you type a prompt to a chatbot - could pose a new online shopping threat.

While we’ve long relied on poor spelling and grammar to spot scams, the NCSC warns that AI could create more polished communication to phish for your personal or financial information or download malware to your device.

With bargain deals bombarding your inbox and social media feeds, it can be hard to weed out the legitimate offers from the scams. 

Be additionally cautious with Black Friday deal emails landing in your inbox - double check the sender's details and inspect all links before you click on them. Rather than following the link from the email, consider visiting the retailer's website directly as this will help you avoid clicking on any malicious links. 

Classic signs that a Black Friday deal may be a scam are:

Unrealistically low prices, so always check that the price of the item is consistent with other websites.

Being posted from a newly created social media account.

Only allowing you to pay via bank transfer which offers very limited protection in the event of a scam, so opt for credit or debit card or PayPal instead.

An impersonated URL - check that the website URL is that of the official brand as it will only have one official website.

Reporting a scam

You can use in-platform reporting tools to report scam ads and posts on social media.

source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/how-to-avoid-falling-for-a-black-friday-scam-asew83l5sdLg