The sales campaigns, prior to Christmas, began in November and now the so-called Black Friday, a holiday of North American origin, which encourages all kinds of discounts in both physical and electronic stores. Finally, the month closes with the Ciber Monday, event focused on the sale of technological products.

Although traditionally during these campaigns the products usually have attractive discounts, it is expected that this year they will not be as noticeable as on previous occasions due to the shortage of electronic components or the increase in transport prices, circumstances motivated by the covid-19 pandemic that affects all countries.

Faced with this decrease in the supply of products, during this period, Internet sales will suffer a significant increase, which will probably be used by criminal networks to obtain benefits for their organizations, as the Ertzaintza has warned in a note.

Due to the risk that their activity increases and they may be victims of scams or other criminal modalities, consumers are recommended to adopt a series of self-protection measures to avoid being deceived:

–Ignore impossible offers. A few days ago a false advertisement circulated on social networks, in which a chain of establishments offered a limited number of large televisions for a price of 2 euros, which was completely false.

-Flee from promotions that come to us by SMS, social networks, etc.

–Do not open links to messages of unknown origin and in which offers are alluded to on all kinds of articles. Instead, type in the address of the page you want to go to.

–Check that the website is secure, a padlock appears at its address, and it begins with https: \

–Check the reputation of the online store. To do this, a search can be carried out in any of the search engines to find out the references of the website.

–Check the age of the website. If it is created recently, discard it as a precautionary measure, since it is likely that it was created directly to commit a crime, although it could also be legal. For this you can make use of whois services for example www.domaintools.com.

–Use virtual cards. Almost all banks offer this service for free. In this way, the actual cards are not exposed and only the amount destined for the purchase can be extracted from them. Once the established limit is reached, it remains inactive.

-For purchases between individuals avoid making transfers by remittance, it is preferable to make bank transfers or use payment systems such as PayPal.

-If something looks too good, the item may have been counterfeit, stolen, or a scam being committed.

-It is better to lose a very attractive offer than to be scammed.

–Do not download any application “app” that they indicate to us to be able to manage discounts, there is a risk that it is malicious. The main sales sites are accessible with their own “apps”, or by direct navigation on their domain.