Scammers didn’t take a summer break. They kept busy, ramping up a fresh wave of back-to-school shopping scams.
As busy families rush to get kitted out for a new school year, scammers are ready with a glut of phony shopping sites, bogus offers, and fake delivery notifications designed to steal your money and personal info.
Let’s get a rundown of what scams are out there this year and how you can avoid them.
What back-to-school shopping scams are out there?
Scammers look to cash in on all the spending that tends to peak in July and August. According to the National Retail Federation, the average U.S. family spends nearly $860 per child to prep them for school—which includes supplies, clothing, and shoes for the new school year. So, like any time of year where a holiday or seasonal event drives a spike in online shopping, we see a rise in scam shopping sites.
Scammers put fake back-to-school deals in front of shoppers in many of the same places legitimate retailers advertise: sponsored search results, emails, text messages, and social media ads. A steep discount on a laptop, backpack, or pair of sneakers might look like a great deal — but sometimes the store, product, or promotion isn’t real.
Common Back-to-School Shopping Scams
Here are several scams families may encounter while shopping for the new school year:
➡️ Fake online stores. These sites can look like legitimate retailers and advertise school supplies, clothing, electronics, and other popular items at unusually low prices. You pay, but the product never arrives. Depending on how the scam operates, criminals may also collect payment or personal information entered during checkout.
➡️ Counterfeit and knockoff products. Some questionable stores actually ship an item, but it isn’t what was advertised. Shoppers might receive cheaply made or counterfeit versions of name-brand backpacks, shoes, clothing, headphones, and other popular products.
➡️ Too-good-to-be-true electronics deals. Laptops, tablets, smartphones, and headphones can put a big dent in a back-to-school budget, which makes deep discounts especially tempting. Scammers may advertise expensive electronics at bargain-basement prices to steer shoppers toward fake stores or fraudulent listings.
➡️ Fake giveaways and shopping sprees. “Win $500 for school supplies” or “Claim your free laptop” promotions can be designed to collect email addresses, passwords, payment details, or other personal information rather than award a real prize.
➡️ Misleading social media ads. Scammers can use polished ads, familiar brand imagery, and steep discounts to make a questionable store look legitimate. Clicking the ad may take shoppers to a fake website designed to imitate a real retailer or brand.
The Warning Sign: A Deal That Creates Urgency
Back-to-school shopping already comes with a deadline, and scammers can use that pressure to their advantage. Watch for phrases such as “today only,” “almost sold out,” “90% off,” or “claim your free gift now.” They’re designed to get you to act before you have time to check whether the offer is legitimate.
Before buying, slow down and take a closer look at the seller, website address, price, and payment options. If an unfamiliar retailer is offering a popular $800 laptop for $199, that’s a good reason to investigate before reaching for your wallet.
How Are Scammers Using Social Media for Back-to-School Scams?
Social media is a natural place to look for back-to-school deals, product recommendations, and discount codes. Scammers know that, too.
Fake and misleading ads can appear alongside legitimate promotions in social feeds. They might advertise deep discounts on laptops, trendy sneakers, backpacks, school supplies, or even “free” back-to-school giveaways. Some may use familiar brand names, polished product images, and professional-looking copy to appear legitimate.
AI tools can also make it easier to quickly create convincing ad copy, images, and other content. But no matter how polished the ad looks, the underlying scam often follows a familiar pattern:
- You see an eye-catching deal. An ad promotes a popular back-to-school item at a steep discount or creates urgency with a limited-time offer.
- You click through to a convincing website. The site might imitate a familiar retailer or look like a legitimate online store, complete with product photos, reviews, and professional branding.
- The site asks for personal or payment information. You might enter your name, address, email, password, or credit card details to make a purchase or claim an offer.
- The scammer gets what they came for. The product may never arrive, you might receive a cheap counterfeit, or the information you provided could be misused.
Don’t Let a Polished Ad Create False Trust
An ad appearing in your social media feed doesn’t automatically mean the seller is legitimate. Before buying from an unfamiliar retailer, search for the company independently rather than relying on the link in the ad. Check the website address carefully, look for credible reviews, and be especially cautious when a deal seems far cheaper than you’d expect.
When back-to-school budgets are already stretched, a big discount can be hard to pass up. That’s exactly why it pays to check the seller before you click “buy.”
Three ways you can avoid back-to-school shopping scams.
1) Look up retailers you’re not familiar with. When you’re shopping online and come across a retailer you haven’t seen before, do some quick research on the company. How long have they been around? Have any complaints been recorded by your attorney general or local consumer protection agency? Also a quick search of “[company name] scam” can help. You might come across posts and reports about a scam related to that company. One extra resource comes courtesy of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) at BBB.org. There you can look up a company, verify its info, and see a list of any complaints against it.
2) When shopping, pay with a credit card instead of your debit card. In the U.S., the Fair Credit Billing Act offers the public protection against fraudulent charges on credit cards. Citizens can dispute charges of over $50 for goods and services that were never delivered or otherwise billed incorrectly. (Note that many credit card companies have their own policies that improve upon the Fair Credit Billing Act as well.) However, debit cards don’t get the same protection under the act. Avoid using a debit card while shopping online and use your credit card for extra assurance.
3) Get a scam detector to spot bogus links and offers for you. Even with these tips and tools, spotting bogus links with the naked eye can get tricky. Some look “close enough” to a legitimate link that you might overlook it. Yet a combination of features in our McAfee+ plans can help do that work for you. Our Scam Detector helps you stay safer with advanced scam detection technology built to spot and stop scams across text messages, emails, and videos. Likewise, our Web Protection will alert you if a link might take you to a sketchy site. It’ll also block those sites if you accidentally tap or click on a bad link.
Also watch out for phony delivery message scams during back-to-school season.
Another popular scammer ploy involves shipping notifications.
Scammers know that with lots of online shopping comes a lot of online shipping notifications. They send phony delivery messages by the thousands, all with the aim of catching a few victims who have real packages on the way.
They pose as legitimate shippers and retailers, do their best to look and sound like them, and use urgency to get people to act.
“Your package can’t be delivered. Please click this link within the next 24 hours to get your shipment.” And so on.
In some cases, those links lead to phishing and malware sites. In others, the notification contains an attachment that installs malware if clicked.
With these scams in the mix, here’s how you can stay safe:
1) Don’t tap on links in text messages: If you follow one piece of advice, it’s this. Companies use their standard addresses and phone numbers to contact customers. Follow up on their websites to see what they are. The USPS, UPS, FedEx, and Amazon each have pages dedicated to sharing that info.
2) Confirm directly: If you have concerns, get in touch with the company you think might have sent it. Manually type in their website and enquire there. Again, don’t click or tap any links.
3) Use the shipping company’s or retailer’s app: the USPS, UPS, FedEx, and Amazon all have legitimate apps available in Apple’s App Store and Google Play. You can also count on those to track packages and verify info about your shipments.
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