Daily Herald opinion: Unwelcome, but critical, holiday advice: Be suspicious, careful to avoid becoming victim of fraud

We all know the famous warning, “If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

Consider also this holiday corollary: “If something sounds too frightening to be happening to you, maybe it’s not.”

In other words, greed isn’t the only factor that can make us susceptible to fraud. Fear is a profound one as well. And online scammers are expert at generating the kind of fear that make you impulsively click on dangerous online links, give up critical passwords or security codes, transfer cash and more.

These are not comforting thoughts during what should be the season of love and giving, but as Charles Keeshan and Susan Sarkauskas reminded us in Friday’s “Cops & Crime” column, they are necessary.

“This is my busiest time of the year,” Steve J. Bernas, president and chief executive officer of the Better Business Bureau of Chicago and Northern Illinois, told the columnists, adding, “Online shopping scams are still first on our list (of scams). The only way to put these scammers out of business is to not give them your business.”

Knowing when and how to do that in a society in which online shopping has become so dominant is no simple matter, but Friday’s column lists a host of options from Bernas and the Better Business Bureau, including:

• Be on the lookout for fake websites that appear like the real thing and even have a nearly identical website address.

• Be careful when clicking on links that were sent to your phone or email from unfamiliar sources. And never download a company’s software just to make a purchase — that may be a trick to get you to install a virus or ransomware.

• Always pay with a credit card, which can limit your liability for fraudulent charges. Services such as Apple or Google Pay, which allow you to pay without providing your credit card number, are good options as well.

• Look for “https://” and a padlock symbol in the website URL that appears in your browser's address bar. This means that the website uses secure technology.

There are many more in the column and online at the BBB’s website, https://www.bbb.org/all/scamtips.

In addition, you’ll find some important advice from PayPal, the digital finance company that claims that in concert with Venmo to account for “a quarter of the world’s $6 trillion digital commerce.” Their tips include:

• Beware of invoices you may receive in your email claiming you owe money for products or services you didn’t buy. Clicking on links in such emails can lead you to surrender compromising information about your accounts, even if you don’t transfer any money.

• Be suspicious of callers or other communications claiming to be charities and using pushy or aggressive tactics to persuade you to donate.

• Know that scammers have sophisticated means of finding out information about you and your online activities and can use it to make you think someone else is trying to defraud you when it is in fact they who are stealing your credit card information.

• Only make online funds transfers to people you know and trust, and especially be suspicious of claims from strangers that you must act urgently to avoid some trouble or help some cause.

• Don’t call phone numbers listed in texts or email messages from sources you are not familiar with, nor open attachments or click on links from such sources.

There are, sadly, more ways to be tricked than can be summarized in a single column or article. The important things to remember are that they can happen to anybody (“Other financial professionals, they're doctors, they're lawyers, they're government employees, there are people of all walks of life who this happens to and this is also backed up by data and research that's done on scam victims,” financial expert Charlotte Cowles told CNN after famously giving up $50,000 in an elaborate scam.) and you can avoid them only by being suspicious and careful.

It’s not exactly the message you want to hear at the holidays, we know. But it’s one that can help ensure that your holiday experiences are as full of joy and love as you hope for.