Video Transcript

ASAC Smith

Well, holiday scams are just our traditional scams, wrapped nicely under the guise of a holiday gift. One of the reasons that these scams are successful or more successful during the holiday season is people are busy. So they are expecting a higher frequency of emails, they're expecting packages, they're purchasing items, and they let their guard down. The Internet does provide our criminal element a way to remain anonymous and to reach victims remotely.

The shipping scam where you might receive an email. And oftentimes, people are aware; they look out for phishing schemes. They're not going to click on an unknown link. But during the holiday season, they might receive a link that purports to be from a shipping company. They've bought packages online. They expect gifts to be coming in the mail. And so your guard is let down, and you actually fall for one of those phishing schemes by clicking on a link.

If you're expecting a package from a company or you if you receive an email that's suspicious to you, the first thing I would do is actually independently contact the company. Go back to the website that you ordered and call the number on that website or the email. Don't trust the link and don't trust the email that's provided to you in that suspicious email.

The gift card scam where folks will ask you to buy gift cards. They will send you ads. Give you discounts online, and you'll buy either cards that aren't loaded or a hard copy card. So the types of gift cards you might buy in the store, at the grocery store where people have actually altered those cards or are signed up for the cards, loaded an ID on to there.

And then when you actually legitimately put money onto the card at the cash register, they're able to drain the card on the back end. Well, certainly when you look at cards that you're purchasing in a store, inspecting them, inspecting the packaging to make sure they haven't been altered. One of the other techniques I'd suggest is buying a gift card that's at the cashier's register.

It's very hard for someone to manipulate a card or interfere with a card within the line sight of an employee. Whether you actually fell for the scam or not, we do ask you to report the attempt to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center. www.ic3.gov. Well, we certainly like to wish the public a safe and happy holiday.