Super Bowl LI is right around the corner, which means every football fan wants to grab their favorite team’s gear. But the Wisconsin Better Business Bureau is warning people to look out for counterfeiters and identity theft on suspicious apparel websites.
“This is an opportune time for scammers,” says Jim Temmer, president/CEO of the BBB Serving Wisconsin. “Swindlers will take advantage of a chance to swipe your credit and debit card information or steal your identity and each year we see more and more fake websites selling counterfeit merchandise being reported.”
The BBB offers the following tips:
- Watch out for “too-good-to-be-true” pricing. Fake websites advertise cheap prices as a way to attract and encourage consumers to purchase their products and provide sensitive information. In many of these cases, either the items do not exist or they are counterfeit and of poor quality.
- Look for contact information. Does the business list its physical address, phone number and email address? Does the physical address match the business address? If no contact information or verifiable business information is listed, it's a red flag.
- Know the seller. Research the company if you have not previously used the website. Check out the company on bbb.org, conduct a Google search, and look at the URL and registrant information.
- Learn to spot a fake site. Make sure that the team names, URL address and information on the site don’t have misspellings or grammatical errors – definitely signs of foreign counterfeiting attempts.
- Check website security. Before making an online purchase, check the URL of the page you are entering. If the URL doesn't start with "https," your information could be exposed to con artists or hackers.
- For more information, visit: www.bbb.org/wisconsin.
