If you couldn't tell by the Christmas trees glistening not too far from the Halloween decorations at big box stores across the Treasure Valley, the holiday season is starting to creep up on us. Many big retailers are either holding or about to kick off early holiday sales.
Best Buy wrapped up their Best Buy Member Deal days at the end of September. Target's slashing prices for "Circle Week" October 6-12. Walmart is flat out calling their sale "Holiday Deals 2024" and it begins October 8. While there are a ton of deals to be found at these three big retailers, the sale that gets the most attention is Prime Big Deal Days.
READ MORE: 6 Of the Most Common Scams Affecting Idahoans
Essentially, Prime Big Deal Days is a repeat of Amazon Prime Day, but in October. This year the discounts will run Tuesday, October 8 and Wednesday, October 9. If you passed up a great deal on a television, fitness tracker, tablet or other gadget, you may have a second chance to score a great price before Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Idahoans are ready to whip out their credit cards and dive head first into shopping. Unfortunately, during big shopping holidays like Prime Big Deal Days, scammers are looking for a way to take advantage of excited, unexpecting shoppers.
One of the most common ways scammers get information like passwords, credit card numbers and bank account information from unsuspecting Idahoans is by impersonating a trusted business, like Amazon.
In fact, the Federal Trade Commission recently revealed that Amazon was the second most impersonated brand in America last year. Their stats show that they received 34,000 Amazon scam reports and that people who fell for them lost a total of $19 million.
Over the years, we've discussed "phishing" scams at great length. According to Norton, one of the most trusted cyber security brands in America, many Amazon scams involve this tactic. Norton, a highly respected cyber security company, defines "phishing" as:
...a cyberthreat in which scammers try to lure sensitive information or data from you by disguising themselves as a trustworthy source. They do this using a variety of communication methods, including email, Google Chat, text messages, phone calls and more.
Sometimes scams delivered by text messages are sometimes called "smishing" scams since they're delivered by SMS. Similar scams that come via phone calls are "vishing," since they're delivered by voice.
Idahoans are targets for several Amazon phishing scams AND some other Amazon related scams you may not be familiar with. According to Norton and VPN provider, NordVPN, these are some of the most common scams associated with the Amazon brand.