How not to get scammed

I’ve been blogging about web scams since 2016. Here I’ll boil down some general ideas I’ve worked out about avoiding getting scammed. If you think you’re being scammed right now, you may want to read “Get your money back from a web scammer.”

A scam is when someone steals your money by trickery or theft. Web scams range from overpricing a product to repeatedly stealing from the customer’s credit card account. By stealing a little money from a lot of people, instead of a lot of money from a few, a scammer can live well without attracting attention from law enforcement.

First line of defense

Don’t buy anything on the web. Patronize your local retailers. In these hard times they’ll be glad to see you and may offer some really good deals.

But finding and buying stuff on the web is so convenient, and some stuff is so hard to find anywhere else, that online shopping can be hard to resist. Also, going to stores during a pandemic makes me feel uneasy.

Second line of defense

Patronize only the online departments of physical stores, like Home Depot, Staples, REI, etc. This way you can preview the products in your local stores, and return them there if they’re not satisfactory.

• The biggest risk here is that you may fall prey to a phishing con. For example, you get an email out of the blue that looks like it’s from a merchant you’ve used online. It asks you to confirm an expensive purchase that you didn’t make, and when you respond to cancel the supposed purchase you’re tricked into giving away your credit card number. If you get this kind of email, contact the merchant (using a phone number, email address or website that you look up yourself, not from the email) and ask if the email was really from them.

Third line of defense

Shop only at large, long-established web marketers like Amazon.

• Again, phishing attacks are a common risk when you deal with any of the “biggie” web marketers.

Into the wild west

The final position is to patronize any web seller you like while taking precautions against scammers. Testing the seller’s trustworthiness is vital, altho there’s no way to eliminate all risk. Good precautions against scamming include:

Don’t get stampeded by this trick.

• If an offer dangles a 50% discount and at the same time claims they’re about to run out of stock, this is a bad sign; don’t shop there. Think “Supply and demand.” In the real world, a merchant who’s running out of stock is not going to drop their price. If anything, they’ll raise it.
• If you see a timer showing that you can only get a discount for x minutes, this is a bad sign. Don’t let them stampede you into skipping a careful consideration of the offer. Timers and other warnings to act right now are chicanery and a reason not to trust the seller.
• Look up the terms for returning the product for a refund in the web site’s Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) or Terms of Service document (a link to it should be on the bottom of the seller’s webpage). Don’t be content with an official-looking guarantee seal. Details about the guarantee in the T&Cs may diminish its protection. Hint: go to the bottom of the T&Cs and scan upward from there to find the refund terms. Sellers like to put them at the end, hoping that you’ll quit reading before you find them. Bad terms I’ve seen include starting the guarantee period on the date of your order rather than the product delivery date, so that the slower the seller delivers your purchase the less time you have to evaluate and return it. Another trick is requiring that, to qualify for a refund, the product you’re returning be unused, untested and still sealed in its unopened package. If the T&Cs are long and hard to read, that’s a bad sign; don’t shop there.
• Pay via PayPal, not with your credit/debit card. If the seller doesn’t accept PayPal, that’s a bad sign; don’t shop there. With PayPal, the seller doesn’t see your credit card data, so they can’t misuse it. Be careful; some offers show the PayPal logo but their order form doesn’t provide a way to actually use it.

You need to know more than this.

Some people think they’re taking precautions against scamming when what they’re doing is no defense at all. Ineffective precautions include:

Don’t trust reviews that have links to the seller that look like this.

• Relying on product reviews. Pay no attention to reviews that the seller makes up, selects or buys. Nearly all testimonials you see in an offer are fabricated. The little portraits and avatars of the “reviewers” are usually clip-art; and the same copywriter writes all of the reviews. When they’re in broken English this is pretty obvious. The product reviews you find on other websites aren’t much better. Disregard testimonials where the reviewers are getting payola. Hint: the review provides a prominent graphical link to the seller’s website. Every time you click the link and buy something, or sometimes just click the link, the seller pays the reviewer some money. These “reviews” are often written by the seller; they’re really just a form of advertising.
• Filling out the order form and then stopping to think about it before clicking the “Buy” button. Some web order forms transmit the data you enter to the seller as you’re typing it in. Even if you leave the webpage without ever clicking “Buy” a scammer has everything they need to steal your money.

Parting shots

• A credit card is like sex; you shouldn’t share it with just anybody. Restricting your online shopping to the “biggies” has much to recommend it.
• If an offer seems too good to be true, it is!