Christmas shopping scams surge as criminals hijack Australian shoppers and intercept parcel delivery messages

Criminals keen to fleece Aussie shoppers of millions of dollars are ramping up their efforts to intercept their purchases and use parcel deliveries to launch scams during the final frenzied weeks of Christmas commerce.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Deputy Chair Catriona Lowe told The Nightly December is an opportune time for scammers to strike.

“Shopping scams are the most common scam type that’s reported, involving loss and we have seen a significant growth in both the reporting of those scams and their losses,” she said.

“In fact they’re up 19 per cent from the same period in 2024 so it is really important that people are on the alert for those sorts of scams.”

The ACCC’s National Anti-Scam Centre has warned that online shopping scams are rising and constituted almost half of all scam reports in the first nine months of 2025.

Between January and September, the ACCC’s Scamwatch service received almost 10,000 reports about shopping scams involving financial loss to the tune of $8.6 million.

Online shopping scams can present as fake online stores, an online marketplace seller or an online marketplace buyer.

Fake sites and sellers are becoming more sophisticated and harder to spot.

“Gone are the days where the website or the email is pretty clunky and full of spelling mistakes,” Ms Lowe said.

“By and large, these days we’re seeing very slick websites that do a really good job of either impersonating a legitimate site or that are entirely created for the purpose of perpetrating a scam.”

Shopping scams are also known as goods and services scams.

Westpac’s head of fraud prevention Ben Young said he has seen criminals scam shoppers in various ways from creating sophisticated websites impersonating popular brands to individuals selling Taylor Swift tickets through social media.

“A lot of these buying and selling scams are on Facebook so they don’t do credit card purchases,” he said.

“If you’re paying with a card, you’ve got a lot better protections … you can dispute those transactions and that’s why these scammers don’t get you to pay with a card.

“They’ll convince you to do a digital transfer (such as) a Pay Anyone payment.”

NAB data shows a nearly 40 percent increase in goods and services scam losses linked to social media, websites and online platforms.

Chris Sheehan, who leads NAB’s Group Investigations and Fraud unit, said crooks exploit the fact people are busy, time-poor and often stressed in the lead-up to Christmas, so they ramp up efforts to rip them off.

“The most prevalent scam, by a country mile, is what we call buying and selling or goods and services scams,” he said.

“They probably constitute well over 60 per cent of the scams that impact NAB customers and probably customers of every bank in Australia.

“Facebook marketplace and other online vendors is where you typically see these things happening. They are, by far and away, the most common type of scam.”

Mr Sheehan, a former senior police officer, said it’s not just older Australians getting caught out.

“Buying and selling scams target every demographic and every age group,” he said.

“The reason that the crooks keep running them is because they’re effective.

“These are not small-time crooks; these are global organised crime groups that are run like a business and they know this is their peak period.”

The fraud expert admitted he once fell for a shopping scam himself.

“I wanted to buy some NASA merchandise, actually. I’d purchased NASA merchandise before and it arrived no problem at all,” he said.

“I thought I was transacting with the legitimate NASA website, but it turns out I wasn’t, and I lost 300 bucks.

“This is to say, there is a scam for everyone, and that is true.”

ANZ’s head of customer protection Shaq Johnson agrees no one was immune from this type of financial deception.

“This time of year is a perfect example where people are busy and there’s a lot going on … and scammers are really good at striking at the right time,” he said.

“They know that you’re expecting a parcel in the mail so you’ll get a message with a link in it saying that your mail is stuck and you need to enter your credit card information to pay a fee.

“The biggest tip that I can give is to just slow down, take a deep breath, look at it and think, ‘Does it seem normal that I’ve been asked to produce that information?’

“If it’s personal information or things like your login credentials, anything to do with your accounts, anything to do with your money, you need to be extra cautious.”

Ms Lowe is urging Australians to be particularly vigilant when shopping online this year.

She advises to carefully scrutinise deals that seem too good to be true, double check websites are legitimate before making a purchase and don’t ignore red flags.

Big discounts that appear “too good to be true” and stores requesting an unusual payment method are just a couple of signs to look out for.

And if in doubt, don’t buy “because the risk is you will lose your money” and give away your financial details.

“It’s just not worth it,” she said.

“We remind consumers that there are three simple steps to take to protect themselves from shopping scams: stop, check and protect.”