According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) 2022 Annual Report, Americans were exposed to approximately $281 million of online shopping and non-delivery scams last year. Many of these scams took place during the holiday season. Full IC3 Report
With the 2023 holiday season upon us, lets discuss 3 common holiday scams impacting your customers, clients, and members this year. This is excellent information to share with your customers/members.
- Charity Scams
What are they? Scammers attempt to take advantage of the kind-hearted nature of people during the holiday season. Fictitious charities are established with the intent of soliciting money under the disguise of being “for a good cause”.
Victim Awareness
- Fully vet any organization to which you intend to donate. This should help confirm the legitimacy of their operation. The Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance or Charity Navigator are useful resources.
- Avoid donating cash on the street (if possible). This could increase your vulnerability for robbery/pickpocketing, and you are not able to vet the source through online research on the street.
- Triple check any website hyperlink or Uniform Resource Locator (URL). Cyber scammers will frequently create fake websites and hyperlinks for well-known charitable organizations, changing one or two characters in the website domain, redirecting donators right into their pockets.
- Gift Card Scams
What are they? Gift cards are easy to purchase and nearly impossible to trace or refund. This makes them a scammers’ dream. The two most common ways gift card scams operate are receiving an empty gift card after an online purchase or a scammer attempting to solicit gift card information from a legitimate gift card that was purchased.
Victim Awareness
- Never provide your gift card information to anyone other than the merchant you are using the gift card for.
- Only use gift cards at the issuer’s store. Avoid third party online merchants unless they are well known and trusted.
- If you buy gift cards in a store, make sure that they haven’t been tampered with. Examine the back of the card to see if the sticker has been scratched off or replaced. Get a receipt with your purchase in case your card is lost, stolen, or tampered with.
- Missed Deliver Notifications
What are they? As people wait for their packages to be delivered this year, scammers will seize the opportunity to send fake text messages, intimidating popular mail carrier services advising that your package has been lost, missed, rescheduled delivery, etc. Scammers are hoping that the sense of holiday urgency will cause you to click on the link where they can solicit money or compromise your Personally Identifiable Information.
Victim Awareness
- Well known mail carrier services will not ask for your Social Security Number or debit/credit card number to track, locate, or redeliver a package.
- Clicking on these links should be avoided. Contact the carrier directly using an official telephone number found on their official website.
In addition to the 3 scams that we discussed in detail, the list of other holiday scams appears to be endless…
- Scammers will contact you on social media, email, and text message, impersonating a family member, claiming a hardship, and asking for money.
- Holiday employment scams will attempt to have you commit check fraud and will compromise your personal information.
- Vacation scams will have you feeling like you got an incredible deal on a holiday getaway but will leave your bank account with coal instead of presents.
- Good old fashioned mail theft and package grabs from your porch.
- Online holiday promotional giveaways and surveys.
Criminals are opportunists and will seize any opportunity to exploit vulnerability. Education is the key to prevention. Your financial institution should consider the following risk mitigation and/or after-action techniques:
- Publishing a holiday newsletter or email, educating your clients, customers, members of potential scams they may experience, not only during the holiday season, but throughout the year.
- If a customer contacts your institution alleging that they were victimized, they could contact local law-enforcement to file a police report.
- For concerns of synthetic and/or traditional identity theft, you could direct them to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Fraud Resource Page.
- The FTC recommends credit monitoring and accessing a free credit report annually through Annual Credit Report.com.
- Customers that are impacted by cyber crime can consider filing a report through the FBI’s IC3 portal.
