Statistically, the last quarter of the year is the one in which we make the most purchases, largely because it is the time of year in which the most promotions are concentrated (Black Friday, Christmas, etc.). And of course, as it is the busiest time of the year, it is also the time when most scams occur, so we are going to tell you what the scams are. best ways to avoid scams when doing online shopping this Christmas.
The data They do not lie, and they tell us that scams in online purchases have grown enormously during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many users began to buy online for the first time. But even after the pandemic, in 2022, 30% of purchase scams occurred when purchasing online, and do not think that they are scams only related to the purchase you make, but that many times scammers also tend to go for information user's personal.
The most frequent scams when buying online
The first and most important way to avoid scams when buying online is to know about them, since knowing the ways that exist to deceive you makes it easier to realize and avoid them in time. One of the most common methods is email phishing: These are fraudulent messages that appear to come from a legitimate store or organization and encourage you to click on a link, often asking for personal information. They often claim that there is something wrong with your account, that your password has expired, or that they need to verify your information for whatever reason.
First of all, keep in mind that a legitimate store or organization will never ask you for your personal information, so NEVER provide it. On the other hand, in most cases these emails come from suspicious email addresses that are clearly not official, they usually have grammatical and even spelling errors, and in fact they often arrive in a language that is not yours. . Can you imagine Amazon Spain writing to you in English? Well, that's it: send it directly to the SPAM folder of your email.
Another common way to carry out scams on the Internet is to create fake online stores, which look very similar to legitimate ones or offer products with quite large (and suspicious) discounts. Obviously in this type of store, once you make the payment you will not receive any merchandise, so the advice here to avoid scams is that first you check that the store is legitimate, and second that if something seems too cheap to be true… it is that surely it is.
Finally, be very careful with the supposed charities. Christmas is often associated with charity, and unscrupulous scammers could also illegitimately impersonate an existing NGO or even invent one to get your money.
How to identify and avoid scams
The first recommendation to avoid scams and fraudulent purchases that we can give you in this regard is to use your head and be very careful where you click. However, there are also a series of tips that will be good for you to keep in mind, especially if you do not usually shop online or until this Christmas you had never decided to do so:
- Always check the url (web address). If it doesn't seem legitimate to you, automatically discard it, and always make sure it's https and not http (the s indicates secure connection, and that reduces the risk of your data being intercepted). For example, be careful with amazon (the o is a zero) or similar.
- Don't trust store emails you receive. If, for example, you receive an email to reset your password without having requested it, it is probably a scam attempt.
- Never click on a shortened link, as they can hide malicious sites. Be careful with QR codes too.
- If you connect to public networks (like a shopping center's WiFi, for example), avoid making any financial transactions or entering any personal data.
- If you don't know a store, always look for reviews and opinions from other users.
- Try to use a different password for everything, and make sure they are complex passwords (more than 8 characters, upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols).
- Use a VPN to secure your data, since as it encrypts your Internet connection and masks your real IP address, it makes it very difficult for malicious users to access your data.
A VPN can be your best ally to avoid scams
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a technology that allows you to establish encrypted and secure connections over the Internet. This connection routes traffic through a secure server operated by the VPN provider, encrypting your data, hiding your real IP address and thereby improving your online security and privacy.
If you want to try a really good VPN, we recommend the services of NordVPN (this year it was the winner of the ADSLZone 2023 Awards for best VPN), because it offers outstanding services at a very competitive price, and truly, if you are afraid of suffering a possible scam when buying online, you should It will help protect you easily and economically.
- NordVPN uses a standard 256-bit AES encryptionpractically impossible to break through brute force attacks, so your data will have solid protection against external access.
- They have more than 5,000 servers in 60 countriesso you will always have the fastest server at your disposal (or wherever you are most interested in connecting from, since in case you didn't know, depending on where you book a trip from, it will be cheaper, for example).
- They have a customer service team available 24×7.
- NordVPN is one of the few VPN providers that has been audited (three times in this case) to ensure that they operate with complete transparency, without keeping user logs and thus guaranteeing total privacy, without risks.
- They also offer a threat protection service to add an extra layer of security if you need it and browse more safely.
- If you want to have different passwords on each site as we have recommended but you cannot or want to remember them all, they also offer you a password manager service, called NordPasswhich uses an XChaCha20 encryption algorithm and operates under a zero-knowledge architecture: not even they will know your passwords.
In addition, during this Christmas they have a promotion where you can save 69% of the price and on top of that they give you 3 months free, with a 30-day money-back guarantee in case you want to try it and in the end it doesn't convince you. Actually, it is the VPN that we use and also the one that we recommend to you.