How to stay financially safe this Halloween

As Halloween draws nearer, it comes with the stress of planning and buying costumes, candy and decorations. To ease a bit of the stress of the day, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) serving Western Ontario has compiled some helpful tips about Halloween spending.

The amount spent on Halloween in North America alone is enough to spook many; almost $7 billion is expected to be spent on chocolate bars and scary outfits. “Besides Christmas, this is one of the biggest spending seasons of the year,” said Deborah Brady, CEO of the BBB serving Western Ontario.

With such an incredible amount being spent, it’s important for spenders to pay attention to where they’re buying their Halloween supplies from and ensuring they’re not being scammed.

Pop-up shops include seasonal stores like Spirit Halloween and Halloween Alley. While these stores aren’t open year-round (they typically open up around October) they often make up for it with a more diverse range of costumes and decorations.

However, it’s important to remember that the temporary nature of these businesses means that getting refunds or returns after Halloween is over can often be difficult. The BBB recommends that customers remember to ask important questions like how long the business will be around for and exactly how their return policy works.

“There are plenty of stores that pop up this time of year and plenty of online options for costumes and decorations. We just want to make sure consumers aren’t out of pocket because of some soulless, creepy scammer,” Brady said.

Further tips provided by the BBB for physical stores, include saving every receipt and using a credit card so that any disputes can be taken up with the card’s issuer. Most of these tips are preventative measures.

Pop-up Halloween shops can be a great place to find cool and exclusive costumes, just make sure you know what exactly you’re getting.

And while buying costumes in person is preferred to buying online, things like making sure the costume fits can really only be done with the costume in hand, there are quite a few online costume sites that offer their services year-round. The BBB recommends using reputable websites with padlock signs in the URL.

The BBB also recommends using their own services to ensure that businesses are safe to shop from.

The BBB is a non-profit organization that serves communities all across North America. Businesses are graded using a set of business guidelines including building trust, advertising honestly and being transparent. If the business chooses, they can pay a fee to be recognized as a BBB Accredited Business.

However, it’s important to remember that the BBB is only one resource to draw information from. Often, the best place to go to ensure you’re getting proper service is straight to the business itself. Be sure to do some research and make sure you’re getting exactly what you’re paying for and make sure that refunding processes exist. Halloween is supposed to be frightening, but buying costumes and decorations doesn’t have to be.