Buyer Beware: Avoid Fake Shopping Apps This Holiday Season
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Just in time for the holidays, a slew of fake shopping apps have been cropping up in Apple's app store that can steal your credit card number and other personal information.
CBS2's Cindy Hsu explains how to protect yourself this shopping season.
Some people she spoke with said they weren't surprised to learn about the fake apps.
"They can hide behind their computer and find ways to just take money from people, it's easy," Kayla Jacobson said.
But others said the news came as a big surprise.
"I had no idea until you just mentioned it to me, so that's a concern," Meghan Alexander said.
"It's pretty scary," Antonio Palacio agreed.
Dan Ackerman, of CNET, told Hsu it's that time of year.
"For the holiday season, we're seeing a lot more now," he said. "They seem to be overwhelming even Apple's ability to screen them out before they go up."
Ackerman said the first line of defense is to check who published the app.
"If I go to the Overstock app, the real one, it says it's by Overstock.com. One of the fake ones that we're talking about, it's by Overstock.inc," he said.
His next test is to check the number of reviews and ratings.
"If I look down here at the customer ratings, I see there's a lot of ratings and reviews for this Overstock app -- lifetime there's over 10,000 of them and it got an average of four stars. To me, that's a sign that this is the legitimate app from the legitimate company," he said.
The fake app didn't have any ratings or reviews and was only published a few days ago.
Also check the app description and instructions.
"If there are a lot of typos and mistakes and it doesn't seem like they were written by someone who's first language is English, that's a big red flag right there," he said.
Another safeguard is to go directly to the store's website. It's a much safer way to download the legitimate app.
Apple said it "takes their security very seriously and removed the offending apps, and will continue to be vigilant."
