In view of Halloweenwhich is celebrated today October 31stonline scams on offers, discounts or fake gifts are intensifying as in other holiday periods. That’s what many safety experts predict will happen again this year on trick-or-treat day. In fact, in recent years, online scams disguised as special offers and gifts linked to this holiday are on the rise, with misleading emails and messages multiplying close to October 31st. These messages may not be spam but attempts at fraud often in the form of phishing emails or websites promising amazing discounts and various Halloween-themed freebies, trying to deceive unfortunate users with eye-catching promises. Once the link is clicked, however, the user is redirected to fraudulent sites created to steal personal data and banking information.
How to recognize Halloween-themed online scams
To recognize Halloween-themed online scams, you just need to pay attention to some aspects that allow you to quite easily recognize the traps set online during this period by cyber criminals. Emails that have subjects like “You’ve won a Halloween mystery box!”, “Unmissable discounts for your Halloween costume!” And “Gift boxes of autumn decorations”, may not be simple spam, but real scam attempts. The variety of messages is vast and always points to capture attention with the lure of exclusive gifts or they advertise super limited time “offers”.. Other “classic” alarm signals are represented by the presence of grammatical errors and from receiving messages from email addresses other than the official ones of the stores from which you may have purchased or, again, the origin of the messages from telephone numbers with foreign prefixes.
Many scams are designed to appear particularly convincing, as the scammers may have set up fake sites that imitate well-known online stores (who also sell Halloween items, perhaps at discounted prices) for the sole purpose of stealing credit card information.
The so-called smishing technique, a type of phishing that occurs via SMS, is also used to spread scams disguised as warnings of customs or package delivery problems. These messages appear to come from couriers and ask you to click on a link to resolve the problem; in reality, the site you are redirected to does not serve to confirm the shipment but to collect personal data. If you respond, you risk giving scammers your information, which could be used for further fraud or even sold on the Dark Web.
How to protect yourself from Halloween-themed online scams
Defending yourself from these scams is possible, as long as you always keep your online attention threshold high. This, translated into practical terms, means always check link URLs which are received via SMS or e-mail Before to open them. Therefore, if you receive a “special” offer for Halloween, hover your mouse over the links before clicking or make a long tap on the address if you are using mobile, so as to check that it belongs to a legitimate and safe site, that begins with “https”. If you receive messages or emails inviting you to click on links to obtain special discounts or to resolve non-delivery problems, access the app or the official website of the store from which you actually purchased to check for any offers or to check for any shipping problems.
In addition to this, especially during the festive periods and in particular on this All Saints’ Eve, Be wary of offers that are too advantageous: If a Halloween costume or decoration has an incredibly low price, ask yourself if it is realistic and try looking for reviews regarding the store that is selling the item. From these simple investigations you could identify a potential cybercriminal.
As for purchases, opt for secure payment methods such as credit cards, which offer greater protection against fraud than less traceable methods such as prepaid card top-ups. Even better if the store from which you intend to purchase something allows you to pay with platforms that offer additional protections in case of any problems (such as PayPal).
Furthermore, be careful when downloading digital Halloween postcards: Downloading these attachments could hide malware, for example an insidious and dangerous Trojan horse.
