As the festive season kicks off, many of us will shop online for gifts. But as we fill our virtual baskets, cybercriminals are also gearing up for their busiest time of year. With fake shops, cloned websites and rogue traders on the rise, the risk of being scammed is higher than ever.
Eight in 10 people in Ireland said they planned to shop online in the run-up to Christmas, according to Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) research published last year. More than two in five had been targeted in an online shopping scam over the previous 12 months. Some 16 per cent lost money to online scams, the research said.
So if you’re planning to shop online this season, can you tell a real deal from a fake one?
Fake shops
So you want to send some shamrock-themed pyjamas to your sister in Australia for Christmas? A quick search shows some online shops with just the thing.
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The Walsh Kildare Instagram account has pictures of some extraordinarily good-looking models on whom these shamrock PJs look, well, unreal. There’s a whopping 80 per cent off today and there are only three pairs left, so you had better be quick.
A few clicks later and you’ve paid for the PJs and for delivery to Australia. That’s some high-quality jammies for your sister sorted, right?
Your sister will get the PJs all right, but they will arrive in February. And they will look nothing like the ones advertised by Walsh Kildare. That’s because Walsh Kildare doesn’t exist. It is one of thousands of authentic-sounding fake shops that have no physical presence at all. It doesn’t exist outside the internet.
Walsh Kildare is what’s called a “dropshipping” website, says the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CPPC). This is an ecommerce model where an online retailer sells products without holding any stock. Only when you place your order does the retailer buy the item from a third-party supplier, who then ships it directly.
There has been a huge increase in ads on social media for websites which present themselves as shops selling online, says the CCPC. The ads can appear in your feed as “sponsored”, which means they have been paid for, but that doesn’t mean they advertise a genuine business, the CCPC says.
[ Online shopping: beware of sneaky sales tacticsOpens in new window ]
“Online scams have become more and more sophisticated, using convincing images and stories and carefully tailoring their ads to seem like trustworthy businesses,” says Gráinne Griffin, director of communications at the CCPC.
Shoppers can end up receiving cheap substitutes and find themselves facing high return costs, unresponsive customer service and a financial loss, warns the CCPC. Products can show up late; some don’t show up at all.
How can you spot a fake shop? Too-good-to-be-true discounts, an urgent call to action such as “sale ends today”, a recently set up website and social media profiles and AI-generated product images are some of the signs.
“If something seems too good to be true, it probably is,” says Griffin. “Whether it’s an incredibly low price for amazing quality or easy access to a product that’s out of stock everywhere else.”
If product reviews on the website are all five-star, or are images instead of links to actual reviews on independent review websites, then this shop is probably fake.
“Always search for reviews on other sites before buying from an online shop that’s new to you,” says Griffin. “Go to Trustpilot, Reddit, Google Maps and other social media sites,” she says.
If the shop offers a single payment option, that’s a red flag too. Always use a debit or credit card or PayPal instead of direct bank transfer to pay, says the CCPC. If in doubt, don’t risk it.
Cloned shops
A cloned shop is where you think you’re shopping on a brand’s website but the website is instead a clone of that website. It’s mimicking the brand.
You can think it’s a trusted brand but you are actually handing your money and your details over to a scammer, says the CCPC. That’s exactly what happened to one online shopper who contacted them.
After clicking through a convincing ad on TikTok, the customer paid €125 by debit card for an armchair. He was convinced it was the website of a well-known furniture retailer, says the CCPC.
When, a few days later, the chair hadn’t arrived, he became suspicious. When he phoned the furniture retailer’s shop, it said it had no record of his order and that chair wasn’t even in their catalogue. He had shopped on a cloned website.
TikTok told him it couldn’t offer any assistance in the matter. The customer contacted his bank and reported the scam to the Garda on the advice of the CCPC. His bank reversed the debit card transaction and he got the money back.
[ 60% of Black Friday shoppers later regret their purchasesOpens in new window ]
“In hindsight, he realised that a big-brand, established furniture retailer would be unlikely to advertise on TikTok. He is now more suspicious of content on social media,” says the CCPC.
You can reduce your chances of being fooled by a cloned website by checking the website URL – scammers can use slight misspellings to trick you.
Better still, always visit the legitimate brand’s official website by typing the URL directly into your browser, or by finding a link on their official social media page, rather than by clicking to it from an ad.
Ensure the web address begins with ‘https’, says Fraudsmart.ie, a fraud awareness initiative from Irish banks. Use Scamchecker.ie, a tool from Fraudsmart, to verify the legitimacy of a website before making a purchase.
Avoid using public wifi when making online payments; always switch to a personal network like 3G or 4G, says FraudSmart.ie.
A padlock icon in the address bar can also be a good sign – this means the site is likely encrypted so any payments you make can’t be intercepted. Perhaps. Sometimes this padlock symbol can be faked, so be wary.
As with dropshipping, too-good-to-be-true discounts, attempts to create fake urgency or tallies of how many customers have already bought the item should raise an alarm.
“For the sake of your finances and your safety, take care when shopping online,” says Griffin. “Don’t let tactics like time-sensitive offers or countdown clocks pressure you into making a decision you might regret.”
Social media scams
Shopping online using a search engine or going to a website can seem old-school in the era of social media.
Our social media feeds have become increasingly full of “sponsored” posts from what can seem like legitimate businesses. Showing glossy images of products we’ve only just been thinking about, it can feel like Instagram is reading our minds.
Shopping via social media can be far from glossy, however.
Making a purchase online via links to the products from social media have the highest incidence of fraud compared to scams from search engines, according to the BPFI research.
[ Irish people among international scammers’ most sought-after targetsOpens in new window ]
That was the experience of one man who bought €320 of oak shelving from a furniture business he found on Instagram.
The business’s page looked professional. However, the shelving didn’t arrive within the promised two-week time frame and his inquiries were ignored. His bank told him to submit a final complaint in writing to the scam business. After contacting the CCPC, he was advised to report the business to Instagram, which said it couldn’t help because it considered the seller to be genuine.
The customer then reported the incident to the Garda. When he got back in touch with his bank, the debit card transaction was reversed and he got his money back.
You may be unlikely to gift a chainsaw to someone this Christmas, but one man’s attempt to purchase one through a Facebook ad also didn’t end well, says the CCPC. The goods never arrived. He asked his bank to reverse the debit card transaction, something they said would take 21 days to review.
The bank confirmed the transaction was reversed and all the money was refunded, but the payment was subsequently returned to the seller – because Facebook didn’t recognise the chainsaw that never arrived as a scam.
The consumer was frustrated with the lack of support from his bank and from Facebook, says the CCPC.
Some 42 per cent of those who use links from social media posts report losing money in an online scam, says the BPFI, and 75 per cent of people say they have been targeted.
“When we consider that fewer than half of adults are using links from a social media post when shopping online, it signals that this behaviour needs to be reassessed, with more education to prevent such scams,” says the BPFI.
Out of pocket
With more than one in 10 of those shoppers in Ireland who have lost money in an online scam reporting losses of more than €500, according to the BPFI, it pays to be vigilant.
More than half of victims lost up to €250 and one in 10 lost up to €999, according to BPFI figures
The percentage of buyers losing money to online scams increases significantly among those who shop online regularly and those who frequently click on social media links, according to the BPFI. Younger adults, men and Dublin dwellers are more vulnerable to losing money from such scams, according to the research.
So, as Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals flood our inboxes and social media feeds, we need to be particularly vigilant. Big “holiday” shopping events mean more of us are shopping online at this time of year, we’re spending more and we’re panic gift-shopping too.
This makes the next five weeks the most wonderful time of the year for scammers who are ramping up their seasonal campaigns, says an advisory from Google released earlier this month.
It’s now a global industry. Sophisticated transnational crime groups are exploiting our vulnerabilities on an industrial scale. AI tools are scaling and enhancing the threat, says Google.
According to a 2025 Global State of Scams survey of 46,000 people globally by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, 57 per cent of adults were scammed in the past year, with more than one in five having money stolen from them.
Whether from embarrassment or because we feel it would be pointless, most people don’t report their losses to the police or regulatory authorities. Almost a quarter believe it wouldn’t make a difference, says the alliance.
And it is true that scammers tend to get away with it. Just 0.05 per cent of all cybercriminals are prosecuted, according to the World Economic Forum.
Don’t rely on social media platforms to protect you from scammers either. On the high street, you can keep your phone or payment cards close in case of pickpockets. The risks when online shopping require another level of vigilance.
“Do your research, take your time and don’t take risks, no matter how tempting the deal,” says CCPC’s Gráinne Griffin. “You can lose an awful lot of money in just a few clicks.”
