Those '60% off' Walmart deals on your phone? 120 fake stores are after your card number

That Walmart deal you spotted while scrolling on your phone - top-shelf whiskey at 60% off - is almost certainly a trap. Researchers at Malwarebytes uncovered a network of more than 120 near-identical fake stores dressed up in Walmart's branding, every one of them built to do a single thing: capture your card details at checkout.

The operation is industrial. Each site runs the same cookie-cutter template on a .shop web address - names like allgoodscenter.shop - sharing the same product photos, the same catalogue, and the same too-good prices, mostly premium liquor knocked down 40 to 70 percent to hurry you into buying. There is no whiskey. When you type in your card number, expiry date and that three-digit security code, all of it goes straight to the scammers, and nothing ever ships.

The tell is the web address. Walmart sells from walmart.com, not from a .shop domain you've never heard of, so before you enter a single detail, read what's actually in the address bar. A price that's wildly better than everywhere else is the bait, not a bargain. Pay by credit card where you can - if a charge turns out to be fraudulent, your card issuer can claw it back in a way debit cards and payment apps often can't. And if you think you already handed your details to one of these sites, call your bank and have the card reissued.

A card-skimming store tricks you, not your PC, so the address-bar habit is the real defence and no app can fully block it. But if a dodgy shopping site also nudged you to install something or dropped in a browser extension, Tendvane's Safety check surfaces unexpected startup programs and extensions so you can see what slipped on.