Holiday scams 2025: These common shopping habits make you the easiest target

This report outlines the surge of holiday-season shopping scams—marketplace fraud, postal tracking smishing, and malvertising/adware—driven by urgency, mobile-first behaviors, and “data-for-deals” habits. It cites survey findings on exposure and victimization rates, highlights how social platforms and rapid checkouts enable deception, and recommends safeguards such as monitoring accounts, using strong authentication, and employing mobile/browser protections to block malicious ads and fake apps.