Every December people start rushing to shopping malls and buying Christmas presents for their loved ones. Due to COVID 19, a lot of them switched to online shopping. Obviously, it’s more comfortable, no one has to wait in enormous queues. The products are delivered to you, simple and brilliant. But that creates an opportunity for scammers who are waiting for potential victims. There are many ways to steal money from people, but I’ll review the most popular ones in 2020.
Impersonating bank or shipping company
Statistics say that this was the most popular scam in 2020. Scammers sent e-mails to clients regarding changing shipping dates and demanding payment for the transport. Clients clicked the links to web pages designed almost as official pages, then gave their personal information, usually financial.
Coupons for thieves
Around 80% of adults are planning to buy at least one coupon as a present. Most coupons are displayed close to checkouts. Thieves steal them, save the details of coupons and return them. When someone buys it, scammer takes all the credit.
Charity donations
Christmas is a time of giving, people tend to give something to the poor ones. Thieves take advantage of those gestures and send e-mails to random people. Some of them will click the link and transfer the money for childer in Africa or people who lost homes to natural disasters. Unsuspicious donors think they helped, but the money lands in the thief’s pocket.
It’s quite disheartening to know that these thieves are willing to go as far as stealing money going to charity. One can only imagine how much money dedicated to charity has been stolen so far. It’s truly unfortunate because even negligible pocket change donations could pile up to be a serious sum of money if donated sufficiently.
I find it very sad that people want to help, donate their money to someone, and the fraudsters take advantage of it. I’m not saying that some kind of cheating is correct, but in my opinion it is an exaggeration to steal money that people wanted to use to help others.
The real face of the world. Some good people give money to help and the others steal. It is sad but this is how the world is constructed and probably always it will look like that.
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