Scammers step up their game during big online shopping events like Amazon’s Prime Day, but you can keep yourself safe with just a few simple steps.
For most of us, Amazon’s Prime Day event is a prime day to pick up bargains. But for many unscrupulous people, it’s also a prime day to profit from scams. Thieves come out of the woodwork to capitalize on big online shopping events like this, so before you dive into all the deals on July 16-17, you should take some extra precautions to avoid getting duped. Here’s what we recommend:Don’t Get Phished
Phishing scams proliferate when Amazon has one of its deal days events. While Amazon is advertising deals, fake sites do the same, and they look very similar to legitimate ones. Links to them can come from emails and be found in search results. So instead of clicking on any link you might encounter, a good practice is to type Amazon.com directly into your browser (or use the official Amazon app) and search there to find the deal.
Likewise, lots of people will sign up for Amazon Prime memberships just to be able to take advantage of Prime Day deals. Part of the sign-up process is setting up a form of payment, and with such valuable information in play, scammers have devised all manner of clever ways to trick you into sharing it. For this reason, you should sign up for an Amazon Prime account only by typing Amazon.com directly into your browser, and then creating a new account or signing into an existing one.
