Senior News Line: Avoiding scammers during the holiday season

Here we are in the middle of the holiday buying season, already leery of online purchasing scams and every email we receive that includes links.

It doesn’t help that Amazon recently sent out thank-you emails about gift card purchases — which people believed was a scam email because they hadn’t made any gift card purchases.

Message boards lit up as people tried to parse and analyze each sentence of the emails to determine whether they were scams or not. Many changed their passwords.

Thousands flooded Amazon with phone calls, only to be assured that there was no scam, that it was an accident on Amazon’s part to send out all these emails. Amazon quickly sent out follow-up emails to those customers to apologize for the error.

There was a collective sigh of relief that the email wasn’t a scam. But we shouldn’t let our guard down too quickly.

And we shouldn’t be wary of scammers only on Amazon. It can happen with other online merchants, as well.

Don’t fall for suspicious activity scams wherein the scammer tries to convince you that your account has been either deleted or suspended for suspicious activity. What the scammer wants, of course, is your payment information, username and password.

Hint: Don’t tell them anything. Call the merchant to inquire about your account.

Then there is the fake order confirmation that indicates you’ve made a very large purchase. A prerecorded phone message will ask if you want to cancel or confirm that order.

You’ll be told to press a button to speak to a representative. Of course, they’ll want you to provide information to verify it’s really you.

Hint: Hang up. Sign on to your Amazon or other merchant account and see if that purchase is actually listed in your orders.

On Amazon.com, there is a page dedicated to security. Click on “Help” at the very bottom of the page.

Then select “Security & Privacy” and then click on “Report Something Suspicious.” Other merchants likely have similar pages of security information.

Be leery, be wary, be suspicious — and stay safe.