The Holidays Are Coming: 'Tis the Season to... Be Careful!

This time next week will be the Thanksgiving Holiday here in the USA. With thanksgiving, it also means that we kick off the holiday shopping season with the infamous "Black Friday."

The holidays are generally seen as a time of joy and light and gift-giving and spending time with family. Whereas those are all good things, the holidays unfortunately also bring out a darker side of people in the form of lots of different scams and deceptions.

With more and more shopping being done online, that means it's also the time of the year when we have to be especially careful!

I was prompted to write this post by my experience just on Facebook earlier today — yes I still use Facebook sometimes, so shoot me! — where I saw a remarkable number of tempting looking ads that were clearly scams or misleading in one way or another.

Store Closing! Liquidation Deals!

One current scam that is going around is a series of false "Coldwater Creek is closing" ads that actually don't lead you to a place to purchase inventory of the indeed correctly defuncts and bankrupt Coldwater Creek company (an upscale casual clothing company), but to a place that either sells inexpensive copies of Coldwater's clothes or quite simply will take your money and never send you the goods.

I hate to say it, but you have to be very careful with online advertising these days, because there are a great number of unscrupulous operators out there who will try to take advantage of people who are eager to do their Christmas shopping online, and score some good deals in the process.

Another interesting — but highly sketchy— ad I saw today was one that offered Great Deals On Tools from the "Harbor Tool Company." Now many out there who are familiar with shopping for budget price tools are familiar with the Harbor Freight tool company, but Harbor Tools is not Harbor Freight tools.

In that case it is more an example of misleading shoppers, and they are counting on you thinking you're buying Harbor Freight Tools and not actually reading what you're looking at and instead simply jumping right in because "hey, look, you can get a 400 piece tool set for just $20!"

Being a keen gardener, I see a lot of gardening ads. That is, I see a lot of ads for gardening supplies of one kind or another. Because it is an area I look at a lot and I'm familiar with many of the products offered, I'm amazed by how many of these are almost outright theft... in the sense that the photos used in the ads come from the genuine company, but the company you're ordering from — is allegedly selling what's pictured in the ad for 1/10th of what it actually costs and probably offering free shipping.

Another unfortunate approach preys on people's obsession with getting a good deal... which is a strong pull in these days when the economy is not the best it could be.

These particular ads want you to believe that some very popular and well-known brand is "going out of business," and again they count on you not noticing that the spelling is off by one letter, and instead when you click on the ad you will be sent to some website where you can place what looks like a legitimate order but what you end up getting — after waiting several weeks for shipping from some far corner of the globe — is a ridiculously cheap and poorly made copy.

I'm ashamed to say I actually fell for one of these a few years ago, thinking I was going to get a very interesting lamp that projected a celestial star map up onto the ceiling. Well, that was at least the idea.

But what I actually got were some pieces of flimsy plastic with all the sturdiness of those clear pockets you use to put photos in, with a design printed on them, likely put there with a low-grade photo printer. And then you somehow had to be able to assemble the individual parts, and center them around a very tiny LED bulb. It was basically a total piece of junk and we had to throw it away!

In essence, if something sounds too good to be true, chances are it is. And that, of course, is a very old truism! In this case I was being hopeful that a piece of gear that normally costs $160-$200 from a legitimate source could somehow be obtained for $29.95. I was hopeful I'd at least get a decent cheap knock-off, but not even that!

Please be careful when you shop online this holiday season! If something seems like a really good deal think twice and see if you can check the reviews associated with the specific website rather than with the product. The "Trustpilot" website is a good place to start. Chances are you will find some bad reviews... or what I often find is that the company with the ad has only been in business for 3 days or a week!

Think twice before you order! And don't tell me I didn't warn you!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great Friday!

How about you? Do you do much shopping online? Will you do any holiday shopping online? Have you ever fallen victim to scammy offers? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2023.11.16 23:34 PST
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