Red flags of phishing websites

When you are shopping online, please watch out for the following red flags of a phishing website.

The website forces customer to register to shop or even add item to their favorite list. This is definitely a red flag. Merchants are rarely so strict. They are just afraid to lose customers. They would allow customers to check out as a guest rather than requiring them to set up an account. This is an deliberate attempt to capture your personal information. Please watch out.

You should receive a welcome email as soon as you register an account. Check your junk mailbox too. If you don’t receive one right away, please be aware. Phishing websites are not fully functional as the legitimate shopping website.

For Canadian customers, you might want to check out the website of its headquarter to see whether you can find any reference to the Canadian website from its HQ website. Sometimes, criminals create a fake Canadian website to steal your information.

When you find that you have visited the phishing website, please run anti-virus scan on your computer or phone. Please call your phone company to alert them if you provided your personal information to phishing website. The criminals can call the phone company and pretend to be you and do a SIM card swap to transfer your phone number to their phones. You might need to change your email address or phone number.  I know it is a pain. You might even need to put on a credit report alert with the two credit bureaus in Canada – Equifax and Transunion. All is to prevent identify theft.

Please be very careful with your personal information.