Last week, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody issued a Consumer Alert warning holiday shoppers about the trending toy scam.
Each holiday season, there are popular toys that many wish to purchase, but may be hard to locate in stores. Scammers monitor these trends and may create fake sale offers for these items, or attempt to send counterfeit toys—or no toys at all—bilking consumers of money and potentially stealing personal information.
“As parents search for the most popular toys of the holiday season, scammers may set up fake websites and advertise too-good-to-be-true offers. Often, the advertisements contain links to malware and the toys for sale may be counterfeit. For more information about how to spot and avoid this scheme, check out our latest Consumer Alert,” Moody said.
Moody offered the tips to help consumers avoid the trending toy scam:
Pay close attention to a website’s URL to ensure a site is legitimate;
Do not click on website links from unknown sources;
Research an online store before buying anything from it—view the Better Business Bureau’s online shopping directory; and
Remember that if a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Moody recently released the 2022 Holiday Consumer Protection Guide, containing further tips for safe online shopping and how to avoid charity-related scams. The guide also contains a list of recalled items to be on the lookout for while holiday shopping this year.
Moody’s “Scams at a Glance: ‘Tis the Season” is a resource full of tips consumers should consider to protect financial and personal information during the holiday season.
To report an online shopping scam, contact the Florida Attorney General’s Office at 1(866) 9NO-SCAM or file a complaint online at MyFloridaLegal.com.
