Christmas shoppers warned over thousands of illegal iPhone deals – look out for instant red flag on all websites
A rise in fraudulent Apple websites offering ‘too-good-to-be-true’ iPhone deals has alerted Christmas buyers.
According to McAfee data, in the six weeks leading up to November 12, consumers tried to access over 624,000 dubious or downright dangerous websites associated with well-known businesses.
A staggering 77,980 of these websites, or 12.5%, are fraudulent e-commerce sites that sell Apple products, McAfee experts told The Sun.
Although McAfee was successful in warning users not to use these websites, those without security software could still be at risk.
These sites seem as genuine brand pages selling things for up to 90 per cent off their original price.
Even though the lower discounts are more plausible, they may also be riskier.
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A McAfee representative told The Sun, “Scam sites usually advertise anywhere from 25 per cent to 90 per cent off items.”
“Small percentages, like 25% to 50% off, seem more realistic and might not raise red flags.
“Higher numbers such as 80 per cent and 90 per cent target those who are more focused on getting great deals and jumping on top of those deal as soon as they see them.”
The increase in fraudulent activity coincides with the holiday shopping season, when people are more likely to click on deals from well-known companies.
Adding, “We expect [the increase] to continue through the festive season,” the spokeswoman said.
“However, the peak of that spike likely hit between Black Friday and early December.”
Experts advise customers to exercise caution, particularly when it comes to offers that appear abnormally generous or originate from unreliable sources.
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McAfee has advised customers to look at the website URL if they are on a page with excessively flashy promotions.
“The easiest and most foolproof way to tell a real from a fake Apple site is to look at the URL itself,” the representative stated.
“While Apple has a few region-specific domain names, when in doubt users can navigate directly toapple.comand search for the product they re interested in purchasing there.”
Although Apple is the most fraudulent tech brand at this time of year, it is not the only one that is regularly impersonated.
Experts have discovered thousands of shady websites posing as retailers of luxury goods from labels like Yeezy, Louis Vuitton, and Rolex, as well as Adidas.
Brands of handbags and shoes were most likely to be taken advantage of online.
Outsmart holiday scammers
Four buying recommendations from McAfee to help you beat holiday scammers:
Keep an eye out: The rise in harmful URLs in October and November is a clear sign that scammers take advantage of people’s holiday buying habits.
Customers should remain cautious during the holiday buying season and be especially watchful during this time.
Put on your skeptic’s hat: Customers should check URLs, look for secure website indicators (such as https://), and avoid companies that promise discounts that appear too good to be true in order to be safe.
Exercise extra caution: When purchasing for products online, it’s crucial to stick with reliable sources because brands like Adidas, Yeezy, Louis Vuitton, Apple, and Rolex are commonly utilized by scammers.
Spelling and grammar mistakes: Hackers frequently use a URL for their fake website that differs by only one character from the real one, such as www.rbcr0yalbank.com instead of www.rbcroyalbank.com.
Hover your cursor over the link before clicking on any website that asks you to take action.
Before visiting a potentially hazardous website, you can use this to preview the URL and see any questionable misspellings or grammatical problems.
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