Many of us are trying to wrap up our holiday shopping but are also in a rush to grab the best deals.
Beware, scammers are lurking everywhere and looking for their next victim.
Linda Ross learned the hard way. She wanted to buy the new Xbox for her teen son but it was sold out everywhere except on this one site.
"I found a site, Gaming Spot and Electronic, and they said they had one in stock for the $500 that everyone was asking," Ross said.
It sounded like GameStop. The only problem, the site's support team wouldn't take credit cards or PayPal.
"He said we had to pay by this cash app, called Zelle."
So Ross paid $500 cash only to get a text saying, "He told me I had to send an additional $500 to have it released for insurance reasons."
Furious, she requested a refund but got no response.
This is more and more common during the holiday season with shoppers desperate to find sold-out items.
How to spot a fake shopping website:
- Check for misspellings on the website.
- Call the number listed on the site and see if it matches the same location of the city and state listed. Also, by calling the number you can if a real person answers or if it goes to a weird voice recording.
- Google the business along with the words, "complaints," "scam."
- Never do business with a website that asks for payment in the equivalent of cash.