Black Friday & Cyber Monday Scams: Essential tips to shop safer this year
You know how to spot a bargain, but do you know how to spot a shopping scam?
Australians are expected to spend $6.8 billion dollars in Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025. These 4 days are times for amazing online deals, but sadly, many steals. Online scammers love the shopping season as much as you do. Scam attempts rocket up during the sales season.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes the shopper’s job even more tricky.
It’s time to get Savvy now.
STOP before you shop online.
Avoid the hurry, take your time.
BEFORE BLACK FRIDAY: Be Prepared
Make a list before the sales. Decide which items you are shopping for & only look for what’s on your list! Resist those unchecked impulse buys.
Check your banking & payment habits. Get a more secure payment option set up, like a temporary or virtual card with your bank. Or a PayPal account or similar payment service.
Set up or change your passwords or passphrases on your banking & online shopping accounts. Set up multi-factor authentication (MFA) for these. MFA is an access code directed to you in a short SMS or email to confirm that it’s really you logging into your accounts.
Find the regular prices of your shopping list items at known trusted shops. Get the facts on non-sale prices so you can better guess if a Black Friday sale offer is possible or ‘too good to be true’.
Get ahead with the news. Before you shop, read about the new types of shopping scams going around online in 2024 & 2025. Learn from others’ experiences - “forewarned is forearmed”. Search the WA ScamNet scam list or get update emails on current scams from WA ScamNet or from IDCARE.
DURING BLACK FRIDAY & CYBER MONDAY: Be Alert
Do online shopping at home, not on public WiFi. When you are out somewhere & your device is connecting to a public WiFi service, your personal information is at higher risk of being stolen by other users. Free shared public WiFi is found at shops, hotels & cafes & other places. Avoid doing online banking and online shopping when your device is on public WiFi.
Look for real-sounding discounts. Offers of very high % discounted prices sound amazing but are often fakes & ‘too good to be true’.
Take your time. Stop & think. An ‘urgent’ offer that needs ‘quick’ action from you is often a scammer’s way to get you to act from your feelings or wants & with less careful thinking & checking.
Stay on sites you know. A seller may tell you that for a chat or a better offer or payment, you must leave the web page or social media page. Downloading a new app or moving to another site to continue your shopping may be less secure and may be a sign of a scam & a risk to your money & information.
Check for tiny differences in the website address. Clone websites closely copy the products, look & style of the actual online shop of a real brand. If you look carefully at the website address (after https://), a clone website might have an extra/missing letter of spelling, or a symbol added, or one or two words different from the real brand’s address. This is a clear sign of a scam.
Use secure payment methods that you know. For example, it might be your PayPal account or your cards from your bank. If you usually shop online, you probably know the payment methods that have proven safe for you before. Take notice if the seller has payment steps that seem too long, complex or unusual to you. If the seller pushes you to use only one specific method of payment or there seem to be extra questions about you or more payment steps, it might be a scam. Be alert if you are asked to make payment with cryptocurrency (crypto). Walk away from the ‘bargain’ if there’s any pressure put on you to pay with crypto.
Have a sense-check chat. If you sense or feel like something about an online shop is not ‘right’, before you buy - have a talk to someone you trust about it. Online sale shopping is a tricky business, and it is natural to feel unsure about it. Talk about it & ask your trusted person if they think it’s a scam. Show them the site or page (& show them these tips!) & ask them to check it. As the saying goes, “Two heads are better than one”!
AFTER SHOPPING: Be Observant
Keep watch on your bank account activity. After the sale is done, look at your account as regularly as you can. Doing regular checks on the account balance will show you if any surprise payments are taken out. Even small amounts can be stolen afterwards and can go unseen when people forget to look at their accounts.
Speak up & seek help. If at any time you think you have experienced an online shopping scam, report it. Tell your bank quickly, ask them to stop any more payments to the scammer & follow their advice. Also, there are people to help you with steps to take next to protect yourself, your money & your online activities. Telling the government agencies about current scams & near-scams also helps them keep others in our community safer from scams.
If scammed, get help from ID CARE. They are an independent nonprofit service in Australia & New Zealand. They will help you with a next-steps safety plan if you have lost money or personal information. https://www.idcare.org/
Report to WA ScamNet. If you are in Western Australia & you have experienced a scam or a near-scam, report to the State government WA ScamNet team at Consumer Protection. https://www.scamnet.wa.gov.au/scamnet/Home.htm
Report to ScamWatch anywhere across Australia. If you have experienced a scam or a near-scam and you live in another state, tell your state authorities. You can report it also to ScamWatch, at the National Anti-Scam Centre. https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/