Amazon Prime Days: A primer and a warning

ATLANTA - It’s like Christmas in July. Amazon Prime Days is next week and the deals are real. 

There are scammers trying to take advantage of the enthusiasm for Amazon Prime Days. We will get to that in a second, but let’s look ahead to next week.

The big, two-day annual sale for Amazon Prime members is next week - Tuesday, July 12 and Wednesday, July 13. Electronics are drastically reduced. A quick glance at the website and you can see 57 percent, 60 percent, and 62 percent off. If you need the big-ticket items but can't buy without deep cuts, or are ready to shop for back-to-school things, or want to start Christmas shopping now, this sale will have everything to fit your wish list. 

Go ahead and put the items you want in your cart today, have your payment info already in there, then hit "buy" on sale day and be done with it. 

Now to the scams that pop up this time of year. The folks at Checkpoint, a cyber security group, says about 2,000 new domain names using the name Amazon have emerged. Last year at this time, there was an 86 percent rise in phishing scams associated with the Amazon Prime Days 48-hour blow out sale.

Checkpoint experts say scammers come most often into your email. It might alert you to a canceled order with a link. That link will download malware. Another one says the payment didn’t go through. Ignore this stuff. Go directly to your Amazon account. If there’s an issue, the company will notify you right there. Do not respond to an email.

But sometimes it’s hard to tell what's real and what's a fraud, so let’s review quickly some red flags.

Checkpoint sent this handy list. Fake domain names mean the web address looks like it’s from Amazon, but it’s not. Look for misspellings. Dead give-away. And notice poor grammar in the body of the email. Or, maybe it just sounds off, using language and phrases we don't say here in the U.S. Amazon is not going to have you opening attachments. If you see that, go directly to their website. And, finally, don’t be fooled by the sense of urgency. They want you to think there’s an emergency afoot. Ignore that.