Amazon Prime Day is less than a week away, and scammers are already looking for ways to prey on shoppers on the lookout for deals, with phishing emails designed to drain targets' bank accounts.
Those kind of hacks and scams are increasing at an alarming rate, according to a cyber security firm.
"This type of attack is actually going up faster than the price of gas. Think of that, a 40 percent increase week-over-week," said Pete Nicoletti, the field chief information security officer for Check Point Software Technologies.
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The web security company said that it is keeping an eye on new web domains related to the word "Amazon," saying that they have seen over 2,000 fraud domains being registered each week, with misspellings of Amazon.
On its website, Amazon shares a video about scam emails, saying that misspellings are one red flag. But as the schemes become more sophisticated, there's one easy way to avoid being victimized: Avoid the links entirely.
"Don't click on those links, OK? Go right to the Amazon website and log in," Nicoletti said.
While Prime Day officially starts at 3 a.m. on July 12, with billions of dollars in sales expected, early deal days are already on.
"A lot of those really good deals are going to be on Amazon’s own products. So it’s echo, smart speakers, it’s Fire tablets, fire TVs, ring video doorbells," said Kristin McGrath, a shopping expert for blackfriday.com.
Clothing can go for 40-50 percent off, including back-to-school items. But as with every sale, McGrath says that getting to know the prices before buying is the best method to get the best deals.
"If you’re on the second the sale goes live in the middle of the night, you don’t have to worry too much. A lot of those deals are going to run the entirety of the sale, you might miss a few lightning deals here and there but the Amazon app actually allows you to set up alerts for items you’re watching," McGrath said.
Shoppers can participate in Prime Day even with a free trial membership, which is good for 30 days.
