With each holiday season, more people purchase gifts, donate, and arrange travel over the internet. While convenient, organizing holiday activities online presents opportunities for phishing scammers to try and get money out of unsuspecting consumers. While computer IT services may help if your device is infected by viruses, here are a few tips for avoiding incidents in the first place.

A Guide to Common Holiday Phishing Scams

1. Fake Shopping Deals

The period between Black Friday and New Year’s has many end-of-year sales, coupon giveaways, and shopping discounts. To take advantage of shoppers accustomed to time-sensitive deals, scammers send emails promoting tempting gift card offers that require entering sensitive personal information to activate.

Avoid opening links in emails with overly long or unfamiliar email addresses, even if they claim to be from legitimate merchants or marketplaces. Instead, visit the website that the sender claims to represent to see if the deal is advertised there.

2. Malicious Shipping Notifications

Scammers take advantage of the increased traffic in shipped goods during the holidays by sending phishing emails using branding from reputable shipping services. They may use these messages to ask recipients to open attachments containing malware or input banking information and credentials.

You can also avoid this scam by being vigilant about email addresses containing random numbers and letters or hosted by free email services. A legitimate shipping notification will always come with a standard email address incorporating the name of the company that sent it. Other indications of a fraudulent message include glaring spelling mistakes, formatting errors, and inaccurate information about you.

3. Fraudulent Charity Emails

Many people also donate money to their favorite charities over the holidays. Scammers may appropriate the branding of established nonprofits, or may present themselves as a new organization. These untrustworthy groups target charitable individuals to ask for money directly, sometimes in specific amounts.

Avoid falling victim to this scam by checking the sender’s listed credentials with a public database. Genuine charities are publicly accountable, often with well-established reputations and extensive documentation behind their activities.

If you believe your computer is infected with malware, count on the team at ComputerWerks. Having served residents of the Fairbanks, AK, area since 1999, this locally owned computer IT services company provides solutions with quick turnaround. Family of active military members and people over 65 receive a 10% discount on parts and labor. Call (907) 451-4888 to request a free quote, and visit their website for more information on their computer IT services.