Consumers are being urged to exercise caution with their Christmas shopping, with Brits losing millions to online fraud during last year’s season.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) found that fraudsters scammed UK shoppers out of more than £11.5 million last Christmas, which was up over a million on the figures from 2022.
There were more than 16,000 reports of online shopping scams made to Action Fraud between November 2023 and January 2024, with each consumer losing an average of £695. Of these reports, more than 7,000 (43%) involved social media, whilst a further 19% mentioned online marketplaces.
The average age of people reporting online fraud was 42, with the 30-39 age bracket forming the largest proportion of complainants.
All this has prompted NCSC chief executive of Richard Horne to claim that Black Friday is fast becoming ‘Black Fraud Day’.
As with many online scams in recent times, AI has helped fraudsters trick innocent consumers into parting with their cash.
Horne told The Guardian that cybercriminals were “targeting bargain hunters with increasingly sophisticated scams, sometimes crafted using AI, making them harder to detect.”
Consumers were also rushed into making decisions with fake deals that offered rock-bottom prices for only a very short time. This sense of urgency drives consumers to make the wrong choices and not stop to spot any potential red flags.
With the average consumer expected to spend £365 in the November sales this year, the NCSC has launched a public awareness campaign around the issue of online retail fraud. It urges consumers to research a company on trusted review sites before making any payments, and to not click on links found in emails, texts or social media.
It also strongly advises consumers set up two-factor authentication on their accounts, as this means scammers won’t get access to sensitive information even if they get their hands on a username and password.
