Greg's Corner

An Amazon scam just in time for the holidays

With only 11 days left until Christmas, I’m sure many of us are still scrambling for gifts for our loved ones. In the rush, you may want to use a site like Amazon to try to simplify matters and have everything there by the 25th. However, in your haste to fulfill those Christmas wishes to your family, you may want to slow down so you don’t fall prey to a scam that seems to come from The Grinch himself.

It’s known as a phishing scam and is designed to get your login credentials to many different websites. Most of the year these emails will try to look like they’re from your bank asking you to click a link and login to your account to solve some fictitious problem the scammers have made up. Instead of your bank, the link takes you to a website they may look identical to your bank’s website but is actually a phony site designed to copy your login information. With the holidays fast approaching many states are reporting that they’re seeing an increase in this type of scam involving retail sites like Amazon. Once the scammers get your login information they usually max out your account by buying largely untraceable things like gift cards.

If you ever receive one of these emails delete it immediately. Don’t even bother responding to the scammers as they can use the barest amount of information to perform any number of scams. Instead, if you feel like you do need to secure your account always type out the URL of the website in your browser and log into your account from the merchant’s main page. This way you’ll be sure you’re accessing the correct service.