Holiday scams to avoid on social media

Social media is now a significant marketing tool for businesses of all industries and sizes, which puts businesses at risk of encountering social media scams. Help your policyholders identify and mitigate potential risks to their business this holiday season.

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) recently published “The Naughty List: BBB’s 12 Scams of Christmas,” which explains holiday scams that may result in potential loss events for business owners. The list includes the following:

• Misleading social media ads – Social media accounts are peppered with ads from bogus companies offering to help with holiday shopping or asking for donations to a fake charity.
• Ill-intended social media gift exchanges – Participants are asked to join what is portrayed to be a fun and safe holiday gift exchange and are tricked into sharing personal information or sending gifts and money to unknown individuals.
• Risky holiday apps – Many holiday-themed apps appear on social media to offer opportunities for children to engage in holiday fun. For example, kids can video chat with Santa Claus, track his sleigh or watch him feed reindeer. However, by participating, you may be at risk for malware or susceptible to your personal information being collected.
• Fake pop-up holiday virtual events – Fake events are created and then advertised on social media. Often, the event will include a fee to register through which the scammer intends to steal credit card information.

You can help your policyholders avoid holiday scams by sharing these tips to discuss with their teams:

• Avoid using new apps (you can usually see the age of the app before it is downloaded).
• Avoid using any apps or websites that do not provide a privacy policy.
• When donating to a charity, do not click the link from the social media post. Instead, go to the official site and verify its legitimacy.
• Understand that “free” does not mean risk-free. Providing personal and/or credit card information can cost money, cause loss of privacy and risk identity fraud for you and anyone in your network.

Exposures from social media scams can result in unauthorized access to your policyholders’ customer information, financial information, employee email addresses and buildings. Through our partnership with the cyber experts at Cyberscout, Encova is here for you and your policyholders with preventive safety measures. You can also talk to your agency manager about our cyber coverage options.