Identifying holiday scams with AARP

The holiday shopping season is here, but so are the scammers. A new AARP report finds 84% of Americans have encountered at least one type of fraud. Wow. Kathy Stokes with the AARP Fraud Watch Network is joining us with more on the scams to watch out for this holiday season and, of course, how to protect ourselves. So, Kathy, good morning to you. Good to have you on with us. Thanks so much for having me. Hey, you know what? This is just one of those things. You hate that it goes hand in hand with the holiday season. But here we are, Kathy. So what are some of the top scams that y'all are seeing? Well, I think probably one of the biggest ones is that text message you get that appears to be from the postal service or FedEx and it says there's a problem with the delivery and they provide a link or a phone number and you go to contact them and it's either to really just try to get your credit card information to steal your credit card or even worse, they're going to send you to a site that downloads malicious software. on to your device, which can be used at a later date from other criminals. We see a lot this time of year of the fake charity requests for money, and we know that not only is the real charity not getting that money, but we're giving money to scammers, so we want to try to avoid that. We see an uptick in travel-related scams this time of year. And also, We all, a lot of us anyway, give or receive gift cards this time of year, and about a third of us have experienced getting or sending a gift card that ends up not having any value on it. Oh, yikes. That'd be the wall. That'd be horrible for you, the giver, and then the person who gets that. Yeah, certainly not what you want to have happen. I want to go back, Kathy, to what you were talking about with those texts. And even emails, I mean, they've gotten so convincing. I've gotten some of those, too, and you're like, well, I am expecting a package to be sent. So it gets you thinking. But can you share some red flags that can maybe help us pinpoint that it's a scam? It's so hard to know fact from fiction now that we just have to be in sort of a mental space to verify before we act on anything. So if you get that UPS or postal service text, instead of engaging with it... If you have an account with FedEx, go to FedEx.com. See if they're trying to reach you and there's a problem. You know, If you're online and you are on social media and you see this great ad for this great deal, Verify that that deal actually exists. If it's from a company that you've done business with, you have an account with, go to the account and see if it's actually being offered. If it's a company you don't know, just go to another web browser page and type in that company name with either scam or fraud. See what comes up. Forty percent of us have had an experience of fraud when buying something on social media. Hmm. I'm so glad you mentioned what you did about the ads, too, because those have gotten so good at at targeting. And Kathy, I feel like every year we know someone who's purchased someone for someone they love through one of those ads that have popped up and then the person never ends up getting it. So anything to keep in mind when you see those those targeted ads? I would say don't engage with them and try to validate, you know, that company or if it's, you know, if it's a Walmart ad, go to walmart.com. Yeah. Also, though, use credit cards instead of any other form of payment because that's where you're going to have the best consumer protections. That's a big one, and that's a great tip for us. What about something to keep in mind as we're using, you know, peer-to-peer payment apps that have become so popular, Kathy? Yeah, because they're so convenient, right? We recommend only sending money or receiving money from people in your world, the people that you know or have done business with in the past, because there really aren't consumer protections with those payment forms. And you could put somebody's name or number in and send them money and realize only after you clicked the button. That you sent it to the wrong number and it's only up to the kindness of the person receiving that money to give it back to you. So really the best thing to do is only transfer money between friends and family and people you know. You know, it seems like with so many of these scams, Kathy, that we're talking about, we can avoid falling victim to them if we just pause, right? If we take a beat before jumping in. I'd say that's one of my big takeaways from what you're talking about today. Does that sound fair? We have to. And it's hard because the criminals have set up the email or the text or the social I think it's important to get the social media out or the into a heightened emotional state, and we want to act quickly because the ad is going to expire or something. They try to get us into a space where we're acting more through the emotional part of our brain and we're just bypassing logic. It's just the way our brains work. So we really all do need to sort of teach ourselves to pause, intentionally think about it. Let me figure out how I can check this out. My grandson's calling me at 3 o'clock in the morning from California, and he was just with us in New England two nights ago. I think I would know if he was going to California. That presence of mind in that moment gets you back into that logical state of mind, and you can disengage. There you have it. Some great tips for us to to enjoy the holiday season without falling victim to one of these scams. Kathy Stokes with the AARP Fraud Watch Network. Kathy, thank you so much for checking in with us here in Atlanta. Thank you. And for more fraud prevention tips, you can head to AARP.org slash Fraud Watch Network. We'll share a link to that on our website, Fox5Atlanta.com. Just look under the Good Day section.