Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! This is the day to celebrate love in its various forms – joy, passion, and happiness. We express our love through flowers, balloons, chocolates, and the list goes on. With customized eCards, accessories and online florist booking services we can conveniently prepare our Valentine’s gifts online. And not surprisingly, internet scams reach their highest peak during this season of love. We’ve prepared this article to list out a few of the most common Valentine’s Day scams:
Suspicious eCards
eCards are extremely popular near Christmas time and Valentine’s Day. Your Significant Other, as well as popular retailers may choose to send you an eCard, and that’s totally fine. However, we want to bring to your attention that scammers often send out eCards with subject headers such as “Someone you know has made you an eCard”. The card may contain malicious links which may lead you to a virus or malware download. Our rule of thumb: if you don’t know the sender of the card, don’t click the links! Prevention is the first step to online safety.
Giveaway Scam
Flowers, rings, necklaces, and gift cards are the most popular Valentine’s gifts. Scammers often make use of social media platforms (you’ve probably seen those “Costco gift cards giveaway” links on Facebook, right?) to host giveaway contests. Most of these “giveaways” aim to attract you to click the link or like their Facebook page. In particular, stay away from malicious web links with minor mistakes (macy.com vs macys.comm).
Conclusion: always make use of your common sense to judge on the deals you’ve seen online. When it’s too good to be true, it probably is. If you have doubts on certain online advertisements and emails or if you would like to report online scams, visit the Federal Trade Commission’s website. Once again, happy Valentine’s Day!