Mother’s Day is coming – have you prepared any wonderful gifts for your mom or grandma yet? No doubt most of you have already started searching for the best deals. But don’t let scammers cut in and ruin the fun! In this post, we’ve put together some common Mother’s Day shopping scams and listed some tips to avoid them.

Top 3 Mother’s Day Online Shopping Scam Sites

Recently we’ve detected over 168,436 fake online shops that feature Mother’s Day sales – have you come across any of them?

#1 www[.]bellajewelr[.]com

(Hit Counts: 33600)

#2 mothersday[.]farmflorist[.]com

(Hit Counts: 10457)

#3 familynmore[.]shop

(Hit Counts: 9225)

Red Flags of an Online Shop Scam

• The acceptance of unusual payment methods (wire transfer/mobile payment apps etc.)
• Unreasonable requests for detailed personal information.
• Typos and questionable wording.
• Lack of genuine reviews/lots of irrelevant reviews.
• Too-good-to-be-true deals.

For more tips on spotting fake online shops, please check out this article.

Use Trend Micro Check Before You Buy

Trend Micro Check is an all-in-one browser extension and mobile app for detecting scams, phishing attacks, malware, and dangerous links — and it’s FREE!

Check out this page for more information on Trend Micro Check.

More Mother’s Day Scams

Besides the “original” fakes above, scammers also impersonate famous brands in order to fool you. Under this guise, they send people fake promotional information that prompts users to click on the attached links. Here are some examples:

Sleepgram

• Sleepgram: Mother’s Day is coming up! Gift your mom a goodnight’s rest with our 30% off sitewide sale! Shop here: <URL>  Text STOP to opt-out
• Sleepgram: Order today to get guaranteed delivery by Mother’s Day! Use code MOTHERS30 to get 30% off sitewide: <URL>  Text STOP to opt-out

The links lead to fake websites that look like the real ones. If you fall for it and complete the purchase, you could end up exposing your credit card credentials.

Kay Jewelers

• [kay jewelers] mother’s day flash sales! up to 70% off! lowest price from 19.99usd! [kay.jewelrylimitedus.com] reply stop to opt out

Zales Jewelers

• [zales jewelers] mother’s day time sale 19.99usd! enjoy up to 70% off! 2022 new & hot! [zales.newjewelryvip.com] reply stop to opt out

How to Protect Yourself

• Shop only on legitimate online stores and platforms.
• Do your homework and read reviews about the online store you plan to shop with.
• NEVER click links or attachments from unknown sources. Use Trend Micro Check to combat scams with ease! (It’s 100% FREE.)

Good luck on your gift-hunting and best wishes to all the Moms out there! As ever, if you’ve found this article an interesting and/or helpful read, please do SHARE it with friends and family to help keep the online community secure and protected.