Tips to Outsmart Holiday Shopping Scams This Season

Gone are the days when you had to do all your holiday shopping in person. Thanks to the rise of the internet, you can buy gifts for the people you love from the comfort of your couch. According to data from CivicScience, a whopping 87% of U.S. adults plan to buy at least some gifts online this year (up from 84% last year). Since the odds are good you're in that group, let's review a few tips to keep clear of online shopping fraud and scams.

Use the right payment method

Want to take advantage of purchase protections, as well as have the opportunity to earn cash back or rewards points on your holiday gifts? Then I recommend using a credit card. Credit cards are an incredibly secure way to pay. They're not linked to your checking account like a debit card is, and they have much more robust consumer protections against fraud. Plus, making purchases on a card can make it easy to track how much you're spending, and you can build credit in the process.

Don't trust social media ads for gift ideas

Social media has become a part of everyday life for a lot of people, and of course, scammers know this. One way you might fall prey to their tricks is via ads for products you see on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. Social media marketing has gotten incredibly specific, but if you spot what looks like the perfect gift being advertised on your feed, it pays to approach it with caution.

You could be buying an item that doesn't actually exist and is never delivered, so you're out the money altogether. Or you might receive something, but it's not what you ordered, and the images of it you saw on social media were generated by AI and not at all based on fact.

In short, it's best to avoid buying items you see advertised on social media, unless you can do some independent research. I recommend googling "'company or product name' scam" or "'company or product name' review" and checking out what comes up.

Beware of "porch pirates"

If your neighborhood is anything like mine, you've been seeing a lot more UPS, FedEx, and Amazon delivery trucks lately as people do their shopping online and items are delivered. More packages on porches means more attractive targets for "porch pirates," or the people who steal boxes and padded envelopes full of holiday gifts.

Get ahead of them by signing up to receive tracking alerts so you know when items will arrive. If you work away from home and delivery people have access to the building (and it's OK with your company), another technique to cope is to have packages delivered to your office. If you have a doorbell camera, keep an eye out for deliveries when you're home so you can bring items inside.

And if you know you'll be away when a package is delivered to your home, ask a kind neighbor to keep it safe for you in the meantime. Former neighbors of mine once gave me a loaf of banana bread in exchange for bringing their huge new TV inside when it was delivered on a day when they were out. What could be better than kindness and baked goods?

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is

Finally, it's best to take all deals with a grain of salt. If you're googling or checking a price comparison app and spot an amazing price on the season's hottest toy that seems too good to be true, yeah, there's probably a catch there. Maybe the item is counterfeit, or that retailer isn't actually selling the item at all, and if you plunk down your credit card information to buy it, you won't receive anything in the mail.

Thankfully, if you used your credit card (like we discussed above), you can file a dispute with your card issuer and ideally, won't be out any money. But by shopping smart and not taking what seems to be an excellent deal at face value, you can reduce the likelihood that you'll fall victim to a holiday shopping scam.

This is an incredibly expensive time of year for many people -- research from Gallup found that Americans intend to spend an average of $923 on the holiday season this year. If your expected holiday tab comes anywhere close to that amount, it's a safe bet that you want the money to go toward gifts, food, and good times. So use the above tips to ensure scammers don't bilk you out of your hard-earned cash.