Scams like this are particularly prominent around Black Friday, as consumers let their guards down for deals that seem “too good to be true.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They usually involve a fake website that appears to be an e-commerce platform or someone impersonating another retailer to encourage a transaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nclose co-founder and business development director Stephen Osler has said that once attackers have created their fraudulent website, they will try to promote it to as many people as possible, often using social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this situation, he says that scammers are ultimately looking for victims with credit or debit cards to steal their credentials and use the card repeatedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Osler pointed out that if a deal seems too good to be true, it is. However, Black Friday is renowned for deals that would be interpreted as such on any other day of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The South African Banking Risk Centre (Sabric) has identified several tips for shoppers and merchants to prevent falling victim to online scams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One way to check a website’s legitimacy \u2014 the first step in deciding whether to transact \u2014 is to use the South African Fraud Prevention Service’s Yima website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tool scans websites for scams and vulnerabilities, using a combination of risks and feedback from users who have interacted with the website to create a Trust Score.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Users can also install a plugin on their browsers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the case of website spoofing, the user interface can be very accurately replicated. Attackers often change a single character in the URL, which often goes unnoticed, even upon close inspection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Fake-checkers-site-1.jpg\")