Visa’s Post

Transcript

So let's focus here now. The FBI has a new warning today for any and all holiday shoppers. Essentially, be vigilant and be extra careful right now because the FBI is saying this every year, thousands of people become victims of holiday scams and they're now warning that criminals are targeting shoppers. Honestly, it's all over the place, especially on this Cyber Monday. And the agency is highlighting the most likely scams where you need to be most concerned. Non delivery scams where you pay for something online, you never know receive it. Non payment scans where scams where you where you ship goods to someone who purchased it, but you never received payment for it. Auction fraud product you purchased was misrepresented in auction site. And of course, gift card fraud. Joining us right now is someone whose entire job is to help James Murfin, senior vice president and global head of risk and identity solutions at Visa. Thank you so much for being here. There are a couple stats that from the FBI looking, you know, they were looking at these Internet kind of crimes and complaints from last year that really stuck out to me. That non payment, non delivery scams cost people more than $309 million last year and credit card fraud accounted for another $173,000,000 in losses. These are just huge numbers and Cyber Monday seems to be just the perfect target for this. It is this time of year. Obviously everyone's excited about all the offers that they can take advantage of, but the criminals are really out there taking advantage too. Just in the last four months, we've seen nearly a three, 100% increase in the number of fake and spoofed merchant websites that these criminals are creating just to try and take advantage of consumers that are out there trying to get good deals on Cyber Monday, running into Giving Tuesday tomorrow as well. So they're trying to get people to click on links and emails and in text messages. They're trying to fish your information and that results in those losses that you took. We talked about it's a huge challenge for consumers to try and stay safe online at this time of year and and all year round. Absolutely. And just how to do it right and how to do it and get some confidence. I mean, what's the most, what do you think is the most frequent scam that you're tracking through the holiday season, be it buyer or seller? You know? Yeah, I think at the end of the day that the criminals are trying to get you to click on links to take you off to fake websites and to get your information and fish your information. So if you're getting emails about Cyber Monday deals, trying to get you to spend your FSA account, holiday promotions, they're just trying to get you to click on those links, go and put your information, steal your information, steal your payment credentials. So best thing you can do is don't click on the links even if the offer looks great. Go to the website, go to your web browser, type in the web address, always look for the HTTPS which shows that it's a secure website. If you do get that Cyber Monday 75% discount offer and you really want to go and buy it, if you've not shopped at the merchant before, check and look at the reviews of the merchant to make sure it's a genuine merchant. Visa is investing a lot of money. We invested over $11 billion in technology and security to try and protect the network and consumers that are shopping. But at this time of year, you also just have to be super cautious as a consumer and think before you click. Yeah. And I think some of those tips that that you're pointing out are really key. I mean, I have been, I will admit I have been a victim of I Googling, Googling a quick search for a website for a deal in past, clicking it, buying it. And it absolutely was a fraudulent website. Product never came. And it was a whole, it was a whole thing after that. I mean, if it's that HTTH, it's the the website you have to check. Putting it in, typing it into the browser is something that if I had taken a hot 2nd, that would have saved me a whole lot of trouble. James. Yeah. I mean, this time last year, one in three consumers clicked on phishing links. So it's you're not alone in doing that. Many of us have done it. It's really important to stay on top of your account though. So not just, as you said, keying into the browser, but your debit and credit cards can have purchase alerts set up on them. So set up those real time notifications. You get all of those coming through to keep on top of your genuine activity. But if you have clicked on a link and if your credentials have been compromised, you'll also see that quicker. You can call your bank, you can call your credit card company. They can help to investigate that you've got purchase protection on your debit and credit card, but they can also get your account secure so you can carry on shopping online. That also is a, you know, a vote showing one of the advantages for using a credit card because then you can really save your credit and debit card because then you can really save your account a lot quicker. Yeah, it's not just shopping as well. I mean, my kids, when they were younger, they used to love the Santa tracking app where you could track Santa as he traveled around the globe. We're also seeing activity around trying to get people to click and download what looks like an app onto their device and it's actually malware. So again, like you need to go to your browser and type in the web address. Make sure you're only downloading genuine apps from the App Store. Again, you're looking at the reviews. The criminals are trying lots of different techniques to try and get access to your information or to get things onto your device and make sure your devices are up to date. It's very easy not to click update and put the patches on there, but it's really important to make sure that all of your devices are up to date, particularly at this time of year when the scammers and the criminals are so active. All of this essential and so helpful as we're kicking off this Cyber Monday and, and, and hearing that this could be a record-breaking 1, no less. James Murfin with Visa. Thank you so much for your help. A new hour of CNN New Central starts now.