Avoiding Prime Day Scams

Amazon Prime Days and scammers want you! NBC News Radio National Correspondent Rory O'Neill joins us to discuss why the deals you see might not be deals. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Amazon Prime. It's a big deal for saving a little money,
but look out, there could be some scammers out there
ready to take advantage of you. On the story this morning,
Rory O'Neil, Nbciors Radio National Correspondent, Good morning, Rory.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Hey, there's Steve. Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
We have received many benefits from those Prime days. Useduld
be a day, now it's days, right. I mean, there's
some great stuff up for grabs out there.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
There is, but look, there are also a lot of
markdowns that aren't really marked downs.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
So there are scams and then there are scams.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
So we want to first about the ones where they say,
look it's sixty seven percent off. You're like, yeah, cause
you guys jacked up the price two days ago and
now you've got it back to where it was before.
So there are websites Camel Camel Camel is one of them,
and keep a in my New England accent, keep a
k eepa keipa will actually track and show you that

(00:55):
item's price long term, so it'll tell you if it
really is thirty three percent off today or if it
just got artificially jacked up and then brought back down
for Prime days.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Because that's another thing that's out there.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Also when you're shopping with some don't forget Amazon doesn't
sell everything on Amazon, right, it's these third party retailers.
Some of them are better than others Amazon. Amazon does
a great job of policing them. But look for the
customer reviews, see what the returns are like, if people
have issues with stoff, how packages arrive. Some of those

(01:27):
third party sellers are better than others.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Steve doesn't like that game because I've been in the
hotel scam before, where I thought I called a hotel,
directly realized I'd gone through some third party thing and
then try to cancel it right if there's some family emergency.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
I don't like this at all.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, and always make sure you're using credit cards for
these transactions. I know we don't want to get into
credit card debt. I'm a big hawk about that, but
the protections they provide are far better than your debit card.
So if you got a choice, and if you can
put stuff on credit cards, because in case there's an issue,
you've got a lot more consumer protections built in. It's

(02:03):
easier to fight those charges than it is to try
to get money put back in your savings account.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Roy, are they expecting this to be maybe in all time.
I know the Amazon Prime deals are always big, but
because of what we're hearing as far as inventory and
people shopping early for Christmas and everything.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah it could be.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
You know, the National Retail Federation doesn't do its big
holiday shopping prediction for another month or so. But you know,
I think combine the Prime days in July and October
are something like twenty five billion dollars in revenue for Amazon.
And look, more and more of us are shopping online completely.
You know, we're not making that trip to the mall.
A lot of times it was oh, sure, we want

(02:40):
them all, we want them all experience. Maybe you pick
up a couple of things on Amazon because you've got
to ship it to Aunt Sally.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Who's already in Connecticut anyway.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
But this way, now, you know, we're seeing more and
more just shop Amazon on the regular. That if the
guy shows up dropping off boxes daily and this just
gets lost in the mix.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I am pure old man on this. I ordered a belt.
It was the wrong thing. I hate the whole thing.
I don't want anything to do with it. Oh I
ordered shoes once, didn't fit, not interested anymore in ordering
stuff online.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
So there you go, Steve, the old well, lose weight,
lose weight, the belt will fit.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
How about that, kay, help me out with the shoes.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Earlier Rory O'Niel, NBC News Radio National correspondent, Thanks for
your time this morning.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Thanks Steve,