Black Friday kicks off one of the biggest online shopping periods in the U.S., and with all that money being spent, it's a lucrative time for cybercriminals to get a hold of your cash and personal information.
Experts say online scams around the holidays are growing because of Americans' increased reliance on e-commerce for shopping.
According to the Better Business Bureau, online scams have been 55% more prevalent than other delivery methods this year — like scam calls or texts — with 75% of people losing money when targeted.
Alex Hamerstone is the director of advisory solutions at TrustedSec and says one current trend involves gift purchases via social media.
Some fraudsters will pretend to be a small business and use misleading advertisements or posts to sell counterfeit goods, or take payments for products that don't exist.
"If you're buying something from a certain website, use the payment tools that are embedded in that site," he said. "A scammer will try to get you to use a different payment method and they'll ask you to go wire them money or use some link to a payment site," Hamerstone said.
Scammers are also creating fraudulent social media profiles for charities to exploit people's generosity.
According to the Better Business Bureau, 40% of all charitable donations are received during the last few weeks of the year.
Experts tell Newsy that if a small business or charity looks suspicious, run a search to see if victims have posted about being scammed online.
If you do make a purchase, use a credit card so you can dispute the charge if it ends up being a scam. And if you're a victim of a scam, report it to the BBB and Federal Trade Commission, who keep running databases of scams to identify trends and build cases against scammers.
