How to spot fake shopping sites and steer clear of being scammed

Ben Black bought what he thought was a well-priced drone online. However the drone never arrived, the site stopped giving an answer to his emails and he never got his $100 back.

“I’m pissed I got caught in it,” says Black, who lives in Westminster, Colorado.

Online shopping scams, just like the one Black fell for, are increasing as thieves take advantage of the surge of people flocking to the web during the pandemic. They do it by creating slick-looking websites pretending to sell gadgets, toys, cleaning supplies and other things in popular. To lure you onto the sites, scammers pay for advertisements on Facebook, Google and other websites.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission says it received an archive number of reports from persons losing profits to online shopping scams in April and May, mostly from persons being tricked into spending money on face masks, disinfectant wipes and other pandemic-related supplies that never arrived. Up to now this year, the FTC has received a lot more than 37,000 reports of online shopping fraud, amounting to $27 million in losses. The quantity has been increasing every year since 2015, amounting to a $420 million in losses.

The easiest method to not get scammed is usually to be alert to the tactics and know what to search for. Here’s some tips:

If you’re on an online site you’ve never used before, do an online search of the company's name along with the words “scam” or “review.” Check the site’s social media pages for just about any complaints from customers. And try the Better Business Bureau's Scam Tracker, which enables you to search company names and read any complaints. One more thing you must do: Read the site's “About Us” page. Misspellings or sentences that don’t seem sensible are red flags.

Place extra scrutiny on sites you find through social media ads, which are a common way to lure people in. Sometimes the advertisements derive from products you've been searching for online. For example, if you’ve been looking for a certain toy, scammers can purchase ads to obtain site on your Facebook timeline with a picture of the toy you've been attempting to buy.

Another way shoppers get tricked is by sites that falsely say they have products in stock that can be purchased out just about everywhere else. Last month, for instance, the FTC moved to shutdown 25 sites that tricked persons into paying for Clorox and Lysol wipes, and then never receive them. Scammers do the same through the holidays, saying they have hard-to-find gaming consoles or toys.

If the purchase price is too good to be true, it probably is, says BBB spokeswoman Katherine Hutt. Scammers offer lower prices on hot products realizing that shoppers will find them hard to resist.

Call your credit card company to dispute the charges and make an effort to get a refund. Also you can report the website on the BBB and FTC websites, that could help others from being scammed.