How back-to-school shopping can leave you open to scams

CINCINNATI (WKRC) – It’s almost time to head back to school and there are some back-to-school shopping scams you should keep in mind.

Back-to-school season is an extremely popular retail movement.

The National Retail Association predicts back-to-school spending will reach nearly $39 billion but with this, comes cyber criminals trying to take advantage.

Here’s what the con can look like.

You can be contacted by email, text, social media or even with pop-up ads for something like high discounts, or free school kits.

But before you click these links, think twice.

McAfee Labs teams have already identified more than 5,500 malicious URLs from May to July of this year.

“So, if someone promises you a 90 percent discount, it might be too good to be true and you might end up falling for a scam and giving your privacy information and credit card details etc.,” said Abhiskek Karnik with McAfee.

“They see a trend where they redirect you to something that is not back to school related so it starts off with back-to-school but you end up on a website which has nothing to do with back-to-school. The scammers are trying to make money off the redirection of traffic to certain websites which may or may not be back-to-school.”

So, how can you protect yourself?

• Always be skeptical.
• Only use retailers you trust.
• Don’t put your personal information in any redirected links.
• Don’t download any extras in exchange for a discount code.
• If you’re shopping on public wifi use a VPN. Don’t click on links from any unsolicited senders through email, text messages, or social media.
• And if you want to be proactive, under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, administrators must allow you to opt out of the school’s directory information at the beginning of a school year. Otherwise, schools can share directory information about their students with third parties without parental or student consent.