In a live segment of The Morning Show with Mike and Juliette, identity‑theft specialist Robert Siciliano (CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com) outlines the five most common holiday‑season scams and offers practical advice for consumers. He explains how scammers create fake e‑commerce sites that appear in top Google results, set up short‑lived storefronts to collect credit‑card data, and disappear. He warns about gift‑card scams tied to “going out of business” sales, recommending the use of generic mall gift cards instead of store‑specific ones. Siciliano highlights the danger of new eBay sellers lacking transaction history, illustrating the risk with a personal anecdote about a buyer receiving the wrong product. He also discusses charity fraud, noting that fake charities can be set up for as little as $15 and urging donors to verify official URLs (e.g., redcross.org) and avoid unsolicited solicitations. Throughout, he stresses basic protective measures such as using reputable antivirus software, manually typing URLs rather than clicking email links, and checking search‑engine rankings for legitimacy. The segment concludes with a reminder that the tips will be posted on the show’s website.
Chapters
Live from the heart of New York City, it's The Morning Show with Mike and Juliette. Also, the top 5 Christmas scams. We expose the clever tricks identity thieves and con artists play to steal your money this time of year. Plus, the cruelest hoax of all.
How do you know that a website you just ordered from for your holiday gifts is for real?
The top 5 Christmas scams coming up next. Our audience is getting all on Twitter about this. About their gift today. With Christmas approaching, everyone's on the lookout for cheap deals on great gifts, but you know what that means.
Yeah, more and more scam artists trying to take your money. Today, Eman Jay investigates the top 5 Christmas scams to watch out for.
Joining us now is the CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com, security expert Robert Siciliano. Fake websites, I know, are a big problem. It just seems like, you know, when you log on to something like, you know, whatever, gingerbread houses, the first one that comes up when you like Google it, I would think that that would be a trustworthy one.
Generally on the first page of search, those sites generally are good. Once you start going, you know, 3, 4, 5 pages deep, that's when you start to get yourself into some trouble.
Fake websites.
Yeah, 'cause what happens is scammers, you know, they know— Bad Santas everywhere, hackers are creating websites that look legit. And what they're doing is, is they're setting up shop for a brief period of time. Yeah. And then you send them checks, money orders, credit card information, and then they're gone the next day.
To buy the gingerbread.
Exactly.
And there is no gingerbread. Right.
Okay. All right, what about going out of business sales? We see these pop up too.
Oh, well, in a recession— we're in a recession right now, and so you have companies that, you know, they're going along and they're, uh, business as usual, but they know they're going out of business. And what happens is you buy a gift card for a friend or family member and then they're gone, they close up shop.
How do you, how do you prevent yourself from doing this?
I would not buy gift cards from particular stores. I'd buy a mall gift card. You could go anywhere.
Oh, I love gift cards though because I'm lazy. I'm a lazy man. And you can get these e-cards.
Yes.
Get the cards online.
Exactly. Well, I actually received one that looked like it was coming from Hallmark. And so I looked at it, it looked like Hallmark, but the reality of it was, it wasn't. It asks you to go to a website, punch in a code, which I did, but I didn't go to the website via the email. I manually typed it in.
Oh.
As long as you have antivirus like McAfee or others, generally you should be in pretty good shape.
You should also watch out for new sellers on eBay. 'Cause eBay, a lot of people have successful transactions on eBay, but—
I love eBay. eBay is great, but most people who don't realize what they're getting themselves into, like my wife, for example— Your wife? Yeah, well, she, you know, was shopping on eBay looking for makeup, and there was a seller that had, you know, no sales previously. And so I said, "Honey, you know, they don't have any history. They have to have history. They have had to have done business previously for you to do business with them." So make sure that they have a lot of history, that they're a proven eBayer.
And they actually sent her spackle. Instead of the makeup. Uh, here's a hard one.
What?
Charities.
How do you know if a charity is legit or not?
Well, if you are, uh, you know, uh, you see a Salvation Army out front and, you know, you want to give them, you know, $4 or $5, great, you know? But if somebody's walking around with a clipboard and they're asking you for checks or money orders or credit card information, that's a problem.
Oh, or the jug that's sitting there with the homeless fund thing. You got to watch out for that one. That's in New York City. A lot of the— tours come in here.
They can pop up all over the place. I mean, it's like $15 to get a license to become a charity.
Yeah, so make sure you're your own charity.
Exactly. So if you're gonna do it online, make sure that, you know, it's redcross.org or, you know, on the top first page of search, that's where you want to make a donation.
Alrighty, Robert, thank you very much, sir. Good luck out there. We'll have these tips on our website, emandjshow.com.
