Black Friday is synonymous with great consumerism, discounts and low prices, something that is much more deeply rooted in the United States. We are often induced to buy, through pop ups and advertisements, with “last chance” or “last articles”. Know that most of the time the technology is working and that the store still has many of the items you are looking for. Advertising is presented to you based on what you’ve searched for and advertising will be directed to what you’ve been looking for recently. So if you think that product is a great opportunity, evaluate it well, you will probably be surprised.
Here are some tips to protect yourself from scams, both in price evaluation and at the technological level.
1. Use technologies
Technologies can be excellent allies so you are not fooled. Sites to compare prices, social networks to evaluate a store, to know what they are saying about a particular promotion in some forum, are small tips of what you can do. If you are in Portugal, we leave you with 2 very useful tools to find out if you are making a good purchase:
Assessment tools:
www.kuantokusta.pt
https://www.deco.proteste.pt/comparar-precos
Store credibility check / complaints
https://portaldaqueixa.com/
2. Advance Purchases
We are just before Christmas so Black Friday can be a good opportunity to be able to buy your gifts in advance. Therefore, define exactly what you want to offer and monitor the price fluctuations of the products. If the product on Black Friday has a value below the average of the last few months, it will certainly be a good time to buy.
3. Trusted stores
Evaluate all the stores where you want to do your shopping. The Internet has become an opportunity for consumers to know exactly what to buy and where. Not all e-commerce sites have “good intentions”, so take advantage of the good that the internet offers you and search on portals, forums or social networks to find out more about the stores where you will buy.
4. Be wary of very low prices
Stores with market prices well below those of competitors will certainly be a scam. You should take into account that the store where you are researching your products is exactly the one you are looking for, taking into account the .com or .pt extensions (among others). Not paying attention to the correct use of extensions can cause confusion, which costs you a lot of money.
5. SMS and suspicious links
At any time of the year it is important to follow this norm, especially now that campaigns are shooting in all media. So, if you received any message with “Congratulations, you won …” be wary and do not access any link or answer the number that contacted you. You should confirm with the brand, to find out if this information is actually verified. In addition to this, more and more scams have emerged through links sent by email, or in the form of pop ups, even more so at this time of “big campaigns”. The links sent may be a way to steal your personal data or to be subscribing to value added services.
6. Discontinued products
At this time of year, brands tend to sell discontinued products, to free up stock for Christmas sales. Assess well what model you want and don’t be fooled.
7. Online Payments
In addition to knowing how to choose the best store in which you are buying, you should take into account the payment methods that the store has, so that if you have any problem in the purchase you can get the refund easily. We give for example the chance of Paypal that makes the transaction more secure, or for example the creation of virtual cards (in Portugal) to avoid the breach of data on your credit cards.
8. Shipping charges
Sometimes online stores impose the payment of shipping costs above a certain amount, calculate if it pays to do the online ordering or purchase directly at the store. Depending on the distance you are from the store, you can even compensate to purchase the product in the physical store or online with later collection in the store.
These are some of our tips. Tell us what you usually do to avoid getting caught by thieves.