HAMPTON ROADS, Va. (WAVY) – A lot of people are hoping to take advantage of post-Christmas deals, but one local cybersecurity expert says that more scammers are trying to steal money from shoppers during this time.
“Around the holidays, a lot of things are going on, so the bad guys and girls are really taking advantage of that,” Greg Tomchick, CEO of Valor Cybersecurity, said.
He said around 75 percent of people will turn to online shopping this holiday season.
“As more people go online, there is more risk of…people being taken advantage of,” he said.
Tomchick says last year, there were about 281 million online scams.
“These folks are starting to get smarter from the bad side of things. They know what type of transaction people are doing. They are starting to learn buying habits and getting right in the middle of that,” he said.
He said the scams are getting better each year.
“We are all running around trying to get things. They will offer it as a quicker transaction process…both the good and the bad stores are leveraging that, so people go and give them the transaction and oftentimes, people get left down when it is a scam because they already paid the money. No other store has that product,” Tomchick said.
He shared a list of tips to keep you safe:
- Tomchick said to shop at reputable stores like the big corporations we all know.
- He said going in-store can assure you get the product you want.
- He said to monitor your bank transactions to ensure there aren’t any odd charges.
- He said you’ll start seeing emails with deals. Tomchick said to double-check before you click any links.
- If you suspect something bad is going on after buying something, he said call your bank as soon as possible. He said you usually have 48 hours to get the money back.
