How to avoid holiday scam artists

By FRAN DANIEL
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Shoppers aren't the only ones who are looking for gifts these days. Thieves and scam artists are extremely active during the holidays.

"This is the type of season that they enjoy, and they are very good at it," said Richard Soloway, a security expert and the chairman of NAPCO Security Systems. "So you've got to be very careful."

The shopping season also presents a good opportunity for identity theft. A pickpocket could easily snatch a purse or wallet that contains all types of personal information.

Soloway and several consumer organizations offered advice on how shoppers can protect themselves and their belongings during the holiday season.

Soloway said that people should never carry around large amounts of cash when they go out shopping in stores and suggested credit cards, debit cards and even travelers checks as safer alternatives.

"You have limited liability with using the credit cards," he said.

But if a credit card is stolen, misused or lost, the credit-card issuer should be notified immediately.

Claudia Bourne Farrell, a spokeswoman for the Federal Trade Commission, said that people should not carry around credit cards that they don't need and they should never carry their social-security card.

"So this is a good time to clean out your wallet," she said.

People should also be careful about where they leave receipts because the receipts may offer information that would be helpful to identity thieves.

When people use an ATM, they should make sure that they are inside a busy, well-lit location and that they withdraw only the amount they need. They should also protect and shield their PIN codes.

"You don't want people standing over you and watching what numbers you are keying into it," Soloway said. "So you've just got to be vigilant and tell them to stand back."

Soloway urged people not to throw away receipts at an ATM and never to flash cash.

"In a very smooth way just kind of put it away without flashing it so nobody knows exactly how much you're taking out," he said. "So they can't follow you away from the ATM and attack you."

Soloway suggested that people not even carry a purse or wallet, if possible, but to use a safety wallet in a belt or under clothes, or to carry cash inside a front pocket or in a purse in front of them, not behind their backs.

"During the holiday season when you have a lot of people running around in all these shopping malls and stores and things like that, you have a crush of people and before you know it somebody's got their hand down inside your bag," he said.

Farrell said that it's important to carefully review bills around the holidays.

"Whether your purse is stolen or your wallet is stolen or not, someone may have gained access to your information and may be placing unauthorized charges on your account," she said.

She said that it's a good idea for people to look at their credit reports after the first of the year to make sure that there aren't accounts on their reports that they didn't open or authorize.

More and more people are shopping online these days. According to JupiterResearch, online holiday sales in the United States will reach $32 billion in 2006, an increase of 18 percent over sales during the same period in 2005.

The National Consumers League, the Better Business Bureau and the National Cyber Security Alliance offer several guidelines to help consumers protect themselves from cyber grinches, scams and schemes.

These organizations said that people should always know whom they are dealing with before buying items by checking out unfamiliar sellers with the Better Business Bureau and their state and local consumer-protection agency.

David Dalrymple, the president and chief executive of the Better Business Bureau of Northwest North Carolina, said that often there are no addresses listed on a Web site and people don't know with whom they are doing business.

He said that people should get all the details, including the name and physical address of a seller, how much the product or service costs and the seller's privacy policy and cancellation and return policies.

Many online problems that deal with identity theft happen as a result of a company's weak security measures once they receive a customer's information, Dalrymple said.

The beginning of the Web site address should change from "http" to "shttp" or "https," indicating that the information is being encrypted, which means that it has been turned into code that can only be read by the seller.

Dalrymple urged people to always look for secure encryption when they send data.

But, he said, "It doesn't mean anybody has said that company is OK and that there's any security behind what they're going to do with the data once they receive it."