{"id":66572,"date":"2025-11-23T15:12:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T15:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/66572\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T15:12:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T15:12:12","slug":"record-187m-expected-to-shop-thanksgiving-weekend-as-expert-warns-against-online-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/66572\/","title":{"rendered":"Record 187M expected to shop Thanksgiving weekend as expert warns against online scams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ARLINGTON, Va. (7News)  \u2014 It&#8217;s that time of year: packed stores, packed sidewalks, and packed shopping bags, with Black Friday only days away. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I actually got this nice sweater. I may use it for Thanksgiving,&#8221; shopper Jamont Hike said outside the Pentagon City Mall in Arlington Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Usually, we stay home. We do some online shopping,&#8221; shopper Rola Sabbagh said. <\/p>\n<p>While that may be more convenient, a Virginia Tech computer science professor warns against online scammers looking to take advantage of holiday shoppers. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You may be getting some emails for super duper deals,&#8221; Murat Kantarcioglu said. <\/p>\n<p>He advises consumers to be alert to texts or emails that appear to be from retailers but are actually scams. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Don\u2019t trust emails by themselves; definitely go to the website yourself. Don\u2019t click on the links, also again go to the website,&#8221; Kantarcioglu said.<\/p>\n<p>RELATED | <a href=\"https:\/\/wjla.com\/news\/local\/washington-dc-government-shutdown-economy-small-businesses-foreclosure-bankruptcy-financial-woes-troubles-hardship-holiday-shopping\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">DC&#8217;s street vendors rely on holiday shopping to bounce back from shutdown sales slump<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The professor noted that artificial intelligence has made scam emails more convincing, making vigilance crucial, particularly for seniors who are often targeted. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Basically, before AI, sometimes scammers make easy mistakes like spelling errors and so on, so forth, but with AI, the emails you receive become much more believable,&#8221; Kantarcioglu said.<\/p>\n<p>The National Retail Federation (NRF) predicts a record 187 million people will shop from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, an increase of 3 million from last year. <\/p>\n<p>While some shoppers prefer in-person sales to avoid online scams, others are becoming more aware of the risks. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s so scary now that you mention that, and I think everybody should be more aware that this is happening,&#8221; Hike said. <\/p>\n<p>RELATED | <a href=\"https:\/\/wjla.com\/news\/local\/fairfax-county-marble-lane-construction-three-story-media-county-leaders-survey-propery-zoning-land-development-impact-herrity-neighborhood-greenbriar-chantilly-culture-parents-restrictions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Homeowner&#8217;s controversial 3-story addition has Fairfax County leaders look at zoning rules<\/a><\/p>\n<p>As scams grow more sophisticated, the professor advises everyone to exercise caution.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everyone will need to be more careful moving forward,&#8221; Kantarcioglu said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Va. (7News) \u2014 It&#8217;s that time of year: packed stores, packed sidewalks, and packed shopping bags, with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-66572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}