Top 5 Scams to Watch Out for During the 2024 Holiday Season

The holiday season brings a spirit of generosity, shopping sprees, and celebratory spending—but it also attracts scammers who look to exploit the holiday rush. While some scams are holiday-specific, others are annual threats with new, sophisticated twists. Here’s a guide to the top five scams for the 2024 holiday season, starting with the latest and moving through the most common threats, so you can protect yourself and your loved ones.

1. Holiday Travel Scams

Scammers target travelers during the holiday season, offering fake deals, bookings, or exclusive travel packages to lure people into providing personal information, payment details, or making upfront payments. Common types of holiday travel scams include a fake as or website offering a travel deal that is too good to be true or a fake hotel bookings site that is after your credit card information.

How to Help Protect Yourself:

• Book directly with verified airline, hotel, or reputable travel sites to avoid look-alike scams and help ensure secure transactions.
• Be wary of deals that seem too good to be true. If a travel deal or rental seems unusually cheap, research the offer and read reviews. Scammers often lure people in with unrealistic prices.
• Don’t answer, click on, or reply to unsolicited calls, emails, or texts claiming exclusive deals, free trips, or emergencies. Always verify information directly with airlines or travel companies.

2. Fake Shipping Delivery Notifications

During the holiday season, almost everyone is expecting packages, and scammers know this well. Fake shipping scams have surged, with fraudsters sending messages via text or email that appear to be from legitimate shipping companies like FedEx, UPS, or the U.S. Postal Service. Scammers claim there’s an issue with your delivery and to click a link or provide personal information to “confirm” the package.

These messages often link to fake websites or phishing portals that aim to steal your personal data, such as credit card numbers, passwords, and addresses.

How to Protect Yourself:

• Only track shipments through official sites or apps. Never click on links from unsolicited email and text messages.
• Be cautious of messages with urgent language or misspellings. Scammers try to make their messages sound urgent, so you ack quickly without thinking.
• If unsure, contact the shipping company directly through official channels.

3. QR Code Scams

With all the holiday shopping, a discount, contest, or promotion might seem like a good way to save money. Scammers know this and have incorporated QR codes into their fraud. They put up fake QR codes in public places disguised as these special offers, contests, or holiday promotions with the goal to direct you to a fake site to put in your personal and payment information.

How to Protect Yourself:

• Avoid scanning QR codes from unknown sources.
• Always check with official retailers to confirm any discounts, contests, or promotions, especially ones that sound too good to be true.
• Look for red flags on the website associated with the QR code such as an unsecured URL, typos or grammatical errors, or an unprofessional appearance.

4. Fake Online Retailer Websites

This scam preys on holiday shoppers looking for a good deal. Scammers create fake online stores with appealing discounts, usually targeting social media shoppers. These fake sites often mimic legitimate brands or carry counterfeit products that may look real but fail to meet safety or quality standards. You end up paying for items that never arrive or are of low quality, losing their money in the process and exposing your payment information.

How to Protect Yourself:

• Stick to well-known, trusted retailers and their official e-commerce site, especially if a deal seems too good to pass up.
• Look for customer reviews, and make sure the site’s URL starts with ‘https’ and not just ‘http’ to confirm the site is secure.
• Be cautious of deals only offered via social media ads and thoroughly investigate the site.

5. Holiday Charity Scams

While many people donate generously during the holidays, scammers take advantage. They can pose as a representative of a real charity or set up a fake charity. They solicit donations through phishing emails, fraudulent websites, and even door to door.

Scammers can use high-pressure tactics when asking for a donation. Or, they might ask for an unusual form of donation, such as gift cards.

How to Protect Yourself:

• Only donate to registered charities, ideally through their official websites.
• Be skeptical of high-pressure appeals, especially from unsolicited emails or phone calls.
• Use sites like the BBB Wise Giving Alliance or Give.org to confirm a charity’s legitimacy.

AI in Holiday Scams

AI (artificial intelligence) has made it easier for scammers to create convincing, hard-to-detect holiday scams. AI not only helps scammers automate part of the fraud process, but it also can help customize scams to make them more believable during the holiday season.

1. Personalized Phishing Attacks

AI-powered data analysis is allowing scammers access to specific information, so they create customized phishing emails and text messages that are relevant to the interest or recent activities of their targets.

For example, scammers might send emails that look like order confirmations for items you recently purchased or an email for a discount from an online store you were recently browsing.

2. Deepfake Technology

Deepfake tools powered by AI only need a few seconds of your voice or you on video to mimic voices and faces. Scammers use these tools to create phone calls or video messages that appear to come from trusted people, such as family members, or bank representatives in an effort to access your personal information and your money.

3. Fake Websites

AI helps scammers rapidly create legitimate-looking fake websites, online stores, and product listings that mimic real retailers. Shoppers seeking holiday deals may accidentally buy from these sites, only to unintentionally give their payment information to scammers.

4. Social Engineering through Behavioral Data

AI algorithms can analyze your online behavior, browsing history, and past purchases, which scammers can then use to tailor offers that look appealing. By leveraging insights into specific purchasing habits and patterns, AI-driven scams can seem appealing and be more likely to trick you into opening an email or clicking on a link.

Identity and Financial Protection

An extra layer of protection against scams during the holiday – and all year long – is identity theft protection services. These services include alerts for possible suspicious activity, credit monitoring, VPN, anti-virus software, and identity theft insurance to help protect you and your money.

Bottom Line

Scammers go to great lengths during the holiday season to take advantage of people’s goodwill. By remaining vigilant, double-checking sources, and taking a moment before responding or clicking on an unfamiliar or urgent request, you can help safeguard yourself and your personal information during the holiday season.