Scam Alert - How Scammers Turned a Letter from Santa into a Con

(December 05, 2014) The holiday season is here, and so are the scams. Watch out for fraudulent website offering “Letters from Santa.” Some of these sites promise a custom letter from the man at the North Pole but don’t deliver.

How the Scam Works:

You get an email selling a “Handwritten letter from Santa to Your Child.” It encourages you to make your child’s holiday by purchasing “Santa’s special package” for $19.99.

You click on the link, and it takes you to a website. The site promises the special package contains an “official” nice-list certification and customized letter from Santa. There’s even a free shipping special that ends (not coincidentally) in just few hours. You decide to purchase and enter your credit card information.

Don’t do it! In the best case, you are simply out the $19.99. In the worst-case scenario, you just shared your credit card information with scammers, who can now use it for identity theft.

In another version of this scam, the site promises a free letter from Santa. It doesn’t request any credit card information, but it does require plenty of personal information, such as your full name, address and phone number. These sites can then turn around and sell your personal information to spammers.

How to Spot a Scam Website:

Follow these tips for spotting an online scam:

--Ignore calls for immediate action. Many scams try to get you to act before you think by creating a sense of urgency (including the scam above). Don’t fall for it.

--Hover over links in emails to check their source. Scammers will make links look like something else. Place your mouse over hyper-linked text and the true destination will appear.

--Make sure the website has (real) contact information. If something goes wrong with your order, you need to be able to contact the business. When in doubt confirm that the address and phone number are real.

--Make sure you pay through a secure connection. When entering credit card information online, be sure that the URL starts with “HTTPS” and has a lock icon in the browser bar.

--Watch for poor grammar and spelling. Scam emails and websites often are riddled with typos. This is often a giveaway that you aren’t dealing with a real business.