Ecommerce websites have become a serious game changer when it comes to stores and selling products online as a large percentage of people are willing to buy products online. Fraud on e-commerce websites is without a doubt increasing rapidly.
According to a study by Goodfirms, over 47% of social media users have fallen for online shopping scams as the social media sites keep offering cheap setups that would play a crucial role to easily scam people online.
The survey, which took place between June 1st and June 8th, 2022, was conducted by GoodFirms and conducted online. As online shopping scams continue to hurt the economy, phishing links and gift card scams also seem to be doing their job when it comes to scamming people online. According to the survey conducted online, 36.7% of people fell victim to gift card fraud and phishing link scam.
Phishing link scams are probably the most common type of scam in which an individual has placed a malicious link in order to gain access to an individual’s personal information, such as a few dollars’ worth of gift cards from popular platforms like Amazon.
In addition, 33% of people reportedly fall for help scams where a fake company representative pretends to help you in emergency situations and demands money in return 30% mark posting fake job ads to steal someone’s private information steal.
Next we have targeted ad scams where attackers tend to promote fake online shopping store to steal someone’s personal information. There are many more scams out there, but they have a low frequency compared to the above. The list includes cloned/hacked account scams with a decent percentage of 23.3%, investment scams with a share of around 16.7%, lottery scams and impersonation with a fake account scam is at only 13.3%, quiz/pooling – and romance fraud is around 6.7% and last but not least fake ticket fraud with a very low percentage of 2.1%.
Now that you know how advanced scams are these days, let’s talk a little about how to protect yourself from such scams. Firstly, use verified online payment methods and avoid third-party websites that accept payments. Secondly, verify that the site is 100% legit by looking at the reviews and the site itself. Third, avoid discounted offers that seem unreal, fourth, avoid clicking on sketchy links offering you free money and prizes is likely an element of phishing attacks, and the last is to limit your public Wi-Fi activities.
So try not to access your personal information online when using public WiFi. The internet has undoubtedly become an unsafe place, try to take as many precautions as possible and shop responsibly.
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