Mo. (Heartland News) – Holiday shopping season is approaching, and this year, the National Retail Federation projects sales will hit a record $1 trillion
Online shopping will be the go-to for many, but some consumers are sounding the alarm that not everything for sale is real.
A scroll through social media reveals hundreds of thousands of videos by shoppers who ordered a product, only to have something arrive that wasn’t anything like the images online.
There are more than 155,000 videos tagged #whatigotvswhatiordered on Instagram alone, and various iterations of the tag can be found across social media platforms.
Shoppers point to the product image that led them to click “buy” and compare it to what arrived on their doorstep instead, usually comically dissimilar.
As artificial intelligence grows, those with the Better Business Bureau say unreliable vendors can use it to generate convincing images of an item that’s not for sale.
“It’s very difficult to spot what is AI-generated now because they do look so realistic,” said Raechel Cantoni. “I always say if it looks overly perfect, there’s a good chance that that is AI.”
Cantoni said AI can also help create fake celebrity endorsements and customer reviews to populate phony websites, also generated by artificial intelligence.
The same rule goes for pop-up ads. Just because a site has advertisements doesn’t mean it’s trustworthy.
“Scammers, they can buy advertisement just as any business or any person really can buy advertisement on social media. And what they can do, too, is they can use AI to completely imitate a website landing page, a celebrity’s Facebook account or Instagram account, anything like that.”
Cantoni said there are three pieces of advice all online shoppers should consider.
- Pause before you click
- Verify before you buy
- Protect before you pay
“So you want to be very careful in the URL and what you’re hovering over to make sure that it is legitimate before you click on anything.”
Cantoni said to stop and notice red flags about an item, then check third-party reviews to see if others consider the site reputable.
“BBB is a place where people have to do the multi-factor authentication in order to leave a review, so you know that those are real humans that made those. If you’ve got a retailer that you’re unfamiliar with or a business that you’re considering buying something from, go to your search engine, type that name in with ‘BBB’ after.”
The final step is to ensure that the form of payment is secure. Requests for paymentment forms, are major red flags
“Protect your financial information, protect your personal information. Use a credit card whenever possible. If you’re getting text messages or emails about deliveries [for orders] that you don’t remember making, don’t click on those links. Avoid those.”
Visit BBB.org for more information.
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