A week from today, the thieves will be out to get you.
You might be in your robe and slippers at home or, let’s be honest, you might be at work. You’ll be in front of a computer, going about your business – your holiday shopping business, that is. And if you’re not careful while you’re online, you could become a victim.
Do the words "identity theft" ring a bell?
The Monday after Thanksgiving is known as "Cyber Monday" – traditionally the biggest online shopping day of the year.
"The hackers, the ID thieves, all of them are typically aware that this is going to be the day most credit card numbers are going online," said Todd Feinman, chief executive officer of Identity Finder, which provides software to help protect consumers. "They’re going to be on the Internet kind of trolling around and trying to sniff out as much information as possible."
Identity theft often occurs when thieves access personal information, such as credit card numbers and mailing addresses – which are often required when making online purchases.
If that information lands in the wrong hands, allowing someone else to run up your credit or potentially open other accounts in your name, your holiday season could be more costly than you expect.
Now, you could use the Internet to scout which retailers appear to have the most competitive prices and then go to their brick-and-mortar stores, saving yourself from worrying about online hackers and phishing scams.
But if you are going to shop online, you need to make sure the items you’re putting in that virtual shopping cart are showing up on a legitimate retail Web site. Fake Web sites designed to scam you usually have red flags.
"You can typically tell by the overall quality of the production of the site," said Matthew Nickols, founder of Web site development company Cirrus ABS.
"If it looks like a high school kid did the site, you want to be more wary. It’s kind of hard to quantify that, but a lot of people can tell when they go to a site that looks more professionally done or if it looks fly-by-night."
Nickols, whose company is based in Fort Wayne, recommends using a Web site like www.nextag.com, which provides price comparisons from retailers with a track record and links to their sites. Shoppers should also look for other credible affiliations, such as membership in the Better Business Bureau, he said.
Jay Foley, executive director of the non-profit Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego, suggests typing the name of an item you’re interested in into a Web browser. The search results should list where the item is available and often information about potential pitfalls.
"There’s information out there," Foley said. "All you have to do is ask."
Foley also recommends online shoppers consider secure payment agents, including Kemesa LLC’s Shop Shield. The cost varies based on the services, but Shop Shield allows users to create a single login and use existing accounts to pay for items but keeps personal information shielded from individual retailers.
Feinman’s software company also offers a program called Identity Finder. One option is a free edition with a file vault to encrypt personal information. The company also offers an Identity Finder product that costs $19.95 per computer per year that helps detect, store securely or discard personal information on a computer that a hacker might be able to access.
Each time shoppers visit a Web site, Feinman said, they end up with temporary Internet files on their computer.
"That’s usually the first place hackers look," he said.
But online shoppers are gradually becoming more savvy about the risks. Feinman said his company, founded in 2001, had annual revenue of more than $5 million in 2008 and expects to top that this year.
Identity Finder has more than 1 million people using its protection products.
"We’ve seen tremendous growth this year," he said. "On our consumer side, it’s grown well over double what it was last year."
