Report underscores the importance of knowing how to spot a scam this holiday season
A new AARP Fraud Watch NetworkTM report is highlighting the ways criminals may target holiday shoppers this year. Three out of four U.S. consumers have experienced or been targeted by at least one form of fraud that can be tied to the holidays, including end-of-year charitable donation requests (39%), purchasing an item through an online ad (35%) and receiving fake notifications about shipping issues (29%).
“Whether in stores or online, fraud criminals up their game when we up our shopping during the holiday season,” said Kathy Stokes, AARP director of fraud prevention programs. “Unfortunately, scams are an all-too-real truth of the consumer experience today. Knowing the warning signs is an important first step to spotting and avoiding these schemes.”
To gain insight into consumer awareness of safe shopping practices, survey respondents were asked to answer a series of related questions. Only 22% of respondents were able to correctly answer at least seven of the nine questions, highlighting the need to broadly share safe shopping tips this holiday season. Consumers should know that:
- Clicking on online ads or on links from emails and texts is fraught with risk; type the web address of the site you wish to visit into your browser directly.
- Retailers will never contact you about a “problem” and request your login information.
- The safest way to…
