Christmas is the season of giving but unfortunately, it is also the season of taking as scammers ramp up ways to take advantage of local residents.
Middle Tennessee Better Business Bureau CEO Robyn Householder said there are 12 frequent Christmas scams that people tend to fall. Those include misleading social media ads, free gift card scams, and even the multi-billion dollar puppy scam businesses. Householder said always stop and think about a deal before acting.
“Take a couple of minutes to do your homework,” Householder said. “Check with BBB to ensure that this retailer is in fact got a great track record in the marketplace and whatever you do don’t communicate with unsolicited messaging.”
Householder said another way to avoid scams is to look for scammer grammar as most scammers are from overseas and do not have a strong grasp of the English language.
“Sadly that’s where the scammer is going to find you,” Householder said. “They are going to offer up a puppy that is a great price and possibly a great pedigree and sadly that dog does not exist. More often than not consumers are sending a deposit of some sort to secure the puppy without ever meeting it and then about the time it comes to ship that puppy well then now there are all kinds of costs that come along whether it’s veterinary bills, shipping costs, you name it.”
Householder said in puppy scams more times than not puppy does not exist or there are thousands of different postings advertising the same puppy. Householder said most of the time when a deal is too good to be true it actually is too good to be true.
“When you see a deal that just seems so much better than what you’ve seen and the stores you normally shop in or the websites you normally go to chances are it really is too good to be true,” Householder said. “Especially right now we see with the hot items that people are looking for.”
Householder said another common Christmas scam is faking shipping tracking notifications. Householder said these mostly come in the form of an email or text message and are attacks to not only steal payment information but also personal information. If you would like to see the full list of common Christmas scams please visit BBB dot org.
The post BBB: Scams More Likely During Holiday Season appeared first on News Talk 94.1/AM 1600.