Don’t let scammers ruin your holiday: Here’s how to stay safe while shopping online
Yahoo Life is committed to finding you the best products at the best prices. Some of the products written about here are offered in affiliation with Yahoo. We may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Pricing and availability are subject to change.
If the last two years have taught us anything, it’s that nothing is normal. So it should come as no surprise that holiday shopping will also look and feel different in 2021. First, it’s happening earlier than ever. Spurred on by global supply chain issues, many consumers are starting to shop now — even before Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Plus, with many shoppers still wary of being inside stores, online shopping is expected to be huge this season.
But if you think you’re safe just browsing the internet for gift ideas, think again. Scammers are trolling your searches to identify which products holiday shoppers are looking for.
“When you click on things, even if you don’t make a purchase, scammers have access to those tools, so they can really get a good gauge of what it is you’re looking for,” says Melissa Lanning Trumpower, the Executive Director of the Better Business Bureau’s Institute for Marketplace Trust to Yahoo Life.
“They’re always looking for the most popular products to offer those up to consumers at the best price, and as we know price is the key factor to falling prey to a scam so that’s something we need to be careful about, especially around during holiday season. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If no one else has that product, and it’s a great price, just be very careful and proceed with caution.”
Shop it: System Mechanic, try it free for 30 days then $4.99 a month at subscriptions.yahoo.com
Another way to make your online shopping more secure and seamless is with System Mechanic. Give yourself the gift of security this holiday season. It’s software you can install on your PC to make sure the data you’ve deleted on your computer is really gone — including your internet history and cache.
System Mechanic also makes your computer run more efficiently, running a comprehensive scan of over 200 tests in just minutes. It also gets rid of all of those junk files, giving your computer more memory and reducing unwanted crashes.
Want to dip your toe in the water before you dive in? Right now, try System Mechanic free for 30 days. After that, you pay just $4.99 a month for ultimate peace of mind.
The riskiest online shopping scams of 2021
Forecasters at eMarketer predict U.S. holiday e-commerce sales will rise 11.3 percent and generate more than $206 billion. But along with the surge in online shopping, comes a spike in online scams.
“Online purchase scams were in the top three riskiest scams for the third year in a row," says Trumpower. "When COVID hit, then it became very clear that this was becoming even riskier because people were increasing their online presence.” Each year, her team puts together a report that identifies the riskiest scams for consumers. Trumpower said this year’s report shows buying online continues to be one of the biggest offenders.
So before you start shopping for that perfect holiday gift, make sure you have the tools and information you need to keep yourself safe and your personal information secure.
“When you create accounts online, use a different password for every account. That way if your password gets compromised on one account, the attacker will not be able to break into all your other accounts," Dr. Lorrie Cranor, the Director of the CyLab Security and Privacy Institute at Carnegie Mellon University tells Yahoo Life. Dr. Cranor says some of the best ways to protect yourself and your personal information is to stick with websites and vendors you’re familiar with, do your research on those you haven’t heard of before and be smart about the way you set up your accounts. "Completely random passwords are safest, but they tend to be harder to remember. Write them down in a safe place or use a password manager program.”
How to protect yourself online this holiday season using LastPass Premium
One way to generate completely random passwords for your online accounts is with LastPass Premium, a top-rated password manager, actually creates safe and unique passwords for every online account you use. Once passwords are created, the software simplifies your online shopping by automatically filling in those long and complicated passwords for you.
LastPass Premium also stores your payment information and shipping details within its vault and automatically fills those in too. This adds another layer of security to your holiday shopping because the vendors do not get access to your credit card information. And you get the bonus of making your online shopping easier.
Shop it: Try LastPass Premium, part of Yahoo Plus Secure, for 30 days risk-free with a money back guarantee, subscriptions.yahoo.com
Speaking of credit cards, Trumpower says the BBB’s study reveals that paying with plastic is much safer than using debit cards or gift cards. “Make sure that when you do enter a payment that you’re using a credit card or PayPal. Those are the two payments methods that didn’t lose as much money,” she says. “When people were using non-traceable payment methods, they were more likely to not get their money back or lose money.”
The FTC adds that credit card companies also let you dispute unauthorized charges or temporarily withhold payment when you suspect you’ve fallen victim to a scam.
Give yourself the gift of security this holiday season. Try LastPass Premium and System Mechanic.
Shop it: Try LastPass Premium, part of Yahoo Plus Secure, for 30 days risk-free with a money back guarantee, subscriptions.yahoo.com
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day
Want daily pop culture news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoo Entertainment & Lifestyle's newsletter.
