How to avoid becoming a fraud victim this Black Friday

With the ease of online payments and rapid advancement of online technology, can one afford to not play it safe when shopping online this Black Friday?

During Black Friday last year, statistics from South African banks indicated a massive surge in online transactions.

First National Bank recorded cardholders spending R2.5-billion on the day, while Standard Bank registered an increase of more than 100% in contactless card payments across its merchant partners compared to the previous year.

Absa reported similar figures, with contactless payments increasing by 110%, online shopping rising by almost 30% and digital payments increasing by more than 50%.

The ease of online shopping has, however, made Black Friday a significant drawcard for scamsters.

Some of the most common methods of defrauding shoppers include fake websites, phishing emails with malicious links, pop-up adverts, fake items for sale on genuine sites and ‘sniffing’ for passwords and payment details over unsecured Wi-Fi.

It is vital to ensure the website you are browsing is legitimate and not a ‘knockoff ‘ of an actual retailer. Dead giveaways would be websites which end with .org.za instead of .co.za.

Other common threats to keep an eye out for are sites which offer unreliable payment methods.

One should ensure online stores have effective return policies with correct and registered physical addresses listed before making a purchase.

Online payment company, PayFast, offers the following tips:

• Do some online research to learn more about the merchant. Reviewing its social media pages and reading customer reviews can be helpful.
• Double check you are browsing the merchant’s domain name or are redirected from a secure source.
• Ensure the website is secure by looking for the “S” in HTTPS at the beginning of the website’s URL, which is found in the address bar at the top of your browser.
• A legitimate store will have contact details. If it’s just a web contact form without an address, email and phone number, you should be wary.
• Make sure there’s a returns and refund policy on the website. This is typically found in the footer. If an issue occurs with your order, such as if you wish to cancel your order or it never arrives, know what your rights are. As a buyer you are entering into an agreement with the merchant, who is responsible for the fulfilment of your order.

While this advice is golden, it is not only limited to the above.

When shopping online it is best to avoid storing one’s card details so that they could be automatically loaded for future purchases.

Generally, a prompt pops up in your browser asking you to store card details. This should be avoided as doing so could put you at risk of exposing your own card details to other users of the device, or put you at risk if your device is stolen.

How to avoid falling victim to phishing scams:

• Don’t follow links, but if you do, validate that the link goes to the correct location.
• Inspect the email address the message was sent from. Scammers won’t be able to send messages from a real domain name as it’ll be filled with random letters or numbers.
• Look at how you are addressed in the email – be weary of “Dear Sir”, “Dear Madam” or “Dear Customer” as legitimate emails will use your name.
• Phishing emails are often riddled with poor grammar and typos, so keep an eye out for them.

Shoppers are not the only ones who need to stay safe this Black Friday, with E-commerce stores also urged to practice online safety.

This can be done in simple ways, such ensuring your shopping cart software and plug-ins are updated.

PayFast advises E-commerce stores to look at:

• Ensuring your SSL certificates are current and in working order.
• Maintaining PCI-DSS compliance.
• Backing up your online store at least once per week.
• Using strong passwords for admin accounts, hosting dashboards, content management systems and so on.
• Using scanning software which protects against malware.
• Applying encryption software to protect data provided from customers to your online store – the same goes for suppliers.
• Removing inactive plug-ins.

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