While you are busy with your holiday preparations or swamped with the busy season at work, scammers are also busy taking advantage of the situation. At Christmas time, many parents may look for a way to deliver a letter from Santa. If you use a website for this service, please be careful which websites you choose. Sadly, scammers will even use parents trying to do good to get ahead. Here are some tips to keep in mind to determine if you are being scammed.

• Research- You can verify if the offer is legitimate by running a search on the topic with the keyword “scam” to see if the product itself is legitimate before you make a purchase.
• Phone calls- If you receive a phone call to make a purchase or inform you about a credit or banking issue, DO NOT ACT. Scammers often try to take you by surprise and if you act without taking a moment to consider if it is legit, it’s probably not. Always go directly to your bank or credit card company to handle your accounts. The phone number is always printed on the back of the card.
• Payments- When you do make a payment using a legitimate source make sure the connection you are using is encrypted to protect your information. An encrypted site uses https (note the S) in the address of their site and the padlock is closed.
• Be wary of any advertising via email. Unless you specifically signed up or expect to receive the marketing material or correspondence from a website, you should never trust anything you receive via email. Often times poor grammar is a tell-tale sign of a scam.

To learn more about this scam read the full article on bbb.org.