Christmas is a great time to score a bunch of sweet presents, down some nog and eat your weight in turkey and stuffing. Oh, and to visit family too, if you’re into that kind of thing. But if you spend any time online, and I bet you do, it’s also a good time of year to be cautious justifiably paranoid. Why? Because online scammers are out in force, like a little army of cyber-grinches. And they want to ruin your Christmas.

A couple weeks ago, the cyber-security whiz-kids at McAfee released their very seasonally-titled article “The 12 Scams of Christmas”. It details a number of ways (twelve in all, I’m pretty sure) that all those bad Santas out there use the good cheer of the holiday season to scam people online. And, given the increasing amounts of money spent online at this time of year on eCommerce and charitable giving, it’s inevitable that a lot of scammers will make a lot of money using tricks like these:

• Charitable Phishing Scams – Phishers send emails pretending to be from the various charities that are especially active during the holiday season. Feeling generous, you follow a link in the email to donate cash, and the phishers take your money and spend it on things other than hospitals in the third world.
• Fake “Luxury” Jewelery – They warn that a lot of those spam emails advertising Rolex watches for fifty bucks are actually scams. Surprising, I know.
• Auction Site Fraud – McAfee warns that a lot of fake auction sites are set up in the weeks preceding Christmas. They recommend you use a known site like eBay. Though, as you’re about to read, using eBay doesn’t exactly protect you 100% either.

So yeah, watch out for that stuff. But of course, there’s plenty of other stuff to worry about at this time of year too. Apparently data and identity theft enjoys its own Christmas rush too. As online shoppers increasingly turn to eCommerce, they become increasingly exposed to unscrupulous vendors and advertisers looking to pilfer their credit card details, and any other info they can get their hands on.

Now, all these warnings always raise a question for me – do any of these scams actually work? Are the scammers actually able to make more money doing this stuff than by, say, getting a job? Well, have you heard about “The Man”? He’s an English con-man who headed an international syndicate dedicated to selling counterfeit goods on eBay. He was just caught, and as the authorities unravelled his enterprise, they learned that the made enough money to buy 10 luxury houses in Thailand, a restaurant in Australia, and part equity in a multi-million dollar yacht. And what were the goods he was counterfeiting? Golf clubs. He’d have the clubs made in China at a couple bucks a pop, then slap a fake Taylor-Made or Calloway logo on them, and sell them online for more than a hundred bucks each. And he made millions.

So the lesson here is, don’t believe anthing anyone tells you online ever, don’t buy a Rolex off a link you received in a spam email, and don’t let your dad look too closely at that new 9-iron you bought him for Christmas.

Related posts:

1. Are scammers ruining social networking?
2. Your favorite eComm site may be scamming you
3. How to Scare the Crap Out of Your Kids at Christmas

Tags: eBay, eCommerce, McAfee, scams

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