CyberArtisans Newsletter Vol 5, Number 11

Welcome to the November issue of the CyberArtisans monthly newsletter!

Our goal is to present information that will be useful to you as a website owner and as a user of the web. If these newsletters are useful, please forward this to a friend. To unsubscribe, follow the directions at the bottom of this email.

This Month's Topics
Online Shopping Deals - Beware of The Scams
Online Shopping Deals - Finding the deals
Regular Mail Fraud

Online Shopping Deals - Beware of The Scams

It's that time of year again. Holiday shopping is our country's way of making sure you don't have too much money in your bank account. And online shopping is growing rapidly, which means there are better deals out there. But the scammers know this too so there are more scams to worry about.

Let's look at the scams first. Here are some of the expert's recommendations:

• Always check the URL of a shopping site before you give them your credit card. There are more than a few scams that send you an email that looks like it comes from a well-known business and sends you to a site that looks right, but if you look at the URL carefully you will see that it didn't take you where you expected. Make sure the address ENDS with the company name. Some scams use a URL like http://well-known-company.freddyspammer.com. The "well-known-company" part of the URL is meaningless -- it's what is known as a sub-domain -- and anyone can set one up on any existing domain without the knowledge of the target company.
• If you find yourself on a site that has a numerical URL (like 192.168.0.1), DON'T give them any personal information. They are most likely using this address to hide something. If you have serious doubts about a URL, contact us and we can do a "reverse DNS" that might reveal who owns the URL.
• If you buy something online and get an email asking you to submit your credit card to cover the shipping, DON'T do it. Instead, contact the retailer you bought from and send them a copy of the email. Not only is this most likely a scam but it means that someone may have penetrated this retailer's system and is leaking consumer information to the scammers.

Online Shopping Deals - Finding the deals

There are a number of sites that keep track of online deals. Some depend on user tips, while others are fed directly by the retailers, so be cautious, but our experience is that sometimes you can find a really good deal this way. Note that we have no connections with these sites whatsoever.

• http://www.cybermonday.com/ - Originally focused on the Monday after Thanksgiving but now lists deals through the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas season
• http://www.fatwallet.com/ - There is a forum but be careful of postings that have not been confirmed by the retailer.
• http://www.slickdeals.net/ - These tips are all provided by site users, so check them out carefully.
• http://www.dealtaker.com/ - Provides coupons and a forum. Exercise caution.

Regular Mail Fraud

This is not an online story but it's worth repeating, if only for the sheer outrageousness. The Early Show on NBC recently took a few credit card mail offers, ripped them up, then taped them back together and sent them in. In a few cases they even changed the address. 60% were approved! So use your shredder, and if you don't have one, buy one and then use it.

You can find out how to opt out of such offers at this Federal Trade Commission website.

Thanks for joining us this month. See you next month.

Want to see back issues of this newsletter? Go to http://www.cyberartisans.com/newsletter and select an issue.

Jonathan Spencer
CyberArtisans Web Developers

http://www.cyberartisans.com/
617-987-0514