Beware of Phishing Scams!

Some online media report that suspicious websites imitating AliExpress might be active online. When users make orders on such websites, they never get the items they ordered, they also never get a refund. We ask you to read the following info on how to detect phishing scams to protect your data when shopping or surfing online.

Phishing is fraudulent activities aimed at getting personal information, such as passwords, credit cards details, usernames, etc. The main tactics is disguising a trustworthy entity. Phishers claim they are official representatives, lawyers, or employers of well-known companies.

How can a phishing scam look and how to avoid it?

Let’s have a look at the main tactics of the scammers.

An email scam

You get an email that looks as if sent from a trustworthy company.

How to detect

1.        The language. Scam emails are usually written by non-native speakers of English, so there can be mistakes.

2.       The email address. Official emails usually contain the domain name after @, i.e. news@megabonus.com. If the email address looks like 124jane@gmail.com, move it to spam.

3.       They ask you to provide your login, password or a bank card details in an email.

4.       They announce you have got an amazing prize, i.e. 1 million dollars. To get it, you have to pay as little as…. Remember, no company will ask you to pay for a prize.

5.        You are said you be a winner in the promotion you didn’t participate in.

6.        You can help…. kids, dinosaurs, anybody. Otherwise they die. Of course, we all should help those in need, but check whom you are going to send the money to before making a donation.

7.        Click the link… in an empty email. If you got an email with 2 words and a link in it – never follow such links!

Scam websites

Online resources stealing your sensitive information.

How to detect

The main points are the same as described in the section above:

1.        Poor language

2.       Poor design. The website may look like the one you know, but sections may be missing, some pages may not work or look weird.

3.       They ask you to fill in the information you provided to the company before.

4.       Contact pages and legal agreements pages missing or look suspicious.

5.       Strange website address that looks like that of a trusted website. Like alixpress.com.

6.       Low traffic and strange location of the servers. Use such tools as who.is and similarweb.com to define where the hosting of the website is located and how many people visit it. If the “eBay” you are on has its servers in Nigeria and 500 visits per day, then you know it’s a scam copy.

Double-check the emails and the offers you get online and make only secure purchases!