As consumers wait patiently for Black Friday to snaffle a bargain or two, scammers are hard at work perfecting their Black Friday scams and getting ahead of the game by offering amazing deals via email. In the run-up to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and throughout the holiday season, everyone should be wary of scams and spam emails. The superb offers and hugely discounted prices are not always what they seem. Most are scams.
There are Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals aplenty, with bricks and mortar and online retailers vying to get your business to kick start the holiday season shopping bonanza. Rather than being confined to the weekend, many retailers have offers over an extended period, and marketing for those deals starts well in advance. Black Friday deals seem to be taking over much of November. While there are bargains to be had, even the incredible prices being offered by genuine retailers may not be quite as good as they seem. While Black Friday deals are touted as being the lowest prices of the year, research suggests that is not necessarily the case. According to the consumer group Which? it is common for prices to be inflated in the run-up to Black Friday to make the discounts seem bigger, and in some cases, the price that a retailer claims a product has been reduced from has never been offered in the previous 12 months. It pays to do some research before you buy.
As far as online shopping goes, it is important to visit your favorite retailers’ websites directly and, as a general rule of thumb, never respond to any offers received by email by clicking links. If you get an email from a retailer advising you of a Black Friday deal, visit their website using your bookmark or by typing in the URL. If the offer is available it should be detailed on the website. This is important as the majority of Black Friday emails are scams. According to a recent analysis by Bitdefender – the company that powers the SpamTitan email sandbox – 77% of Black Friday-themed spam were scams, a 7% increase from 2023. Many of these scam emails impersonate big-name brands and offer impressive but fake discounts on products and services. They often lead to financial loss, data theft, and malware infections.
Black Friday scams include offering top-name brands at heavily discounted prices, but actually mailing cheap counterfeit goods or not mailing any product at all. Big-name brands have been impersonated in spam emails that include an attachment that purports to be a shipping confirmation, confirming that orders are ready for shipment when the attachments direct users to websites where they are asked to disclose their credentials or the attachments install malware.
At this time of year there is a surge in survey scams, where consumers are asked to take part in surveys in exchange for a discount or voucher, and after completing the survey are asked to disclose sensitive information that can be used directly for fraud or spear phishing campaigns. If you receive unwanted marketing communications from genuine retailers, you can use the unsubscribe option to update your preferences, but make sure you carefully check the destination of the unsubscribe button and the sender’s email address to confirm the communication is from a legitimate retailer.
If you receive spam emails, the unsubscribe option should be avoided. Using the unsubscribe option lets the scammer know that the account is active, and all that is likely to happen is you will receive even more spam. Far better is to mark the email as spam and block the sender. Clicking an unsubscribe option in an email may direct you to a site where a vulnerability is exploited to download malware.
Businesses should ensure they have an effective spam filter, and it is never more important than in November, December, and January when spammers are highly active. At TitanHQ, we offer products that provide exception protection against spam, scams, phishing emails, and malware. In recent independent tests by VirusBulletin, the engine that powers the SpamTitan spam filtering service and the PhishTitan anti-phishing solution for Microsoft 365 achieved a 100% phishing catch rate, a 100% malware catch rate, and a spam catch rate in excess of 99.9% in November 2024 results. These follow overall scores in excess of 99.99% for blocking spam, phishing, and malware earlier in the year, demonstrating these email security products provide excellent and reliable protection against malicious and spam emails.