Santander has shared a Christmas warning that cost online shoppers £30,722 last year, as experts cautioned that “the festive season has always been a scammer’s paradise”.
Nearly 450 purchase scams were reported to Santander in just two weeks before Christmas 2024, the bank has warned.
A total of £30,722 was reported as stolen as a result of purchase scams on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day 2024 alone.
Across the UK, the bank estimates that 3,207 parcels were missing from under Christmas trees in 2024, as a result of purchase scams, with scammers enticing shoppers often with fake ads on social media offering large discounts on must-have items.
And the risk is growing. Over Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day 2024, customers reported £30,722 stolen – a 75% jump compared to 2023 (£17,552).
If 2025 sees a similar increase, the bank predicts that more than £50,000 could be reported as stolen by Santander customers during the three-day holiday window this year.
Chris Ainsley, head of fraud risk management at Santander UK, said: “In the days before Christmas, shoppers are at their most vulnerable. As we approach the last shopping weekend, people are stressed, in a rush and desperate for gifts to arrive on time, and scammers know it.
“Hundreds of customers paid for items that simply never existed, and by the time they realised, it was too late to replace them. As we head into the busiest shopping period of the year, we want people to pause, double-check the seller, and be cautious of deals that look too good to be true.”
Colette Mason, author & AI consultant at London-based Clever Clogs AI, urged people to avoid clicking links from emails.
She continued: “Santander’s warning is spot on, but people need to understand the full threat of AI. We’re not talking about dodgy emails with typos anymore. We’re talking about fully cloned sites that pass every credibility check, personalised emails that sound exactly like your favourite retailer, and fake product pages that mirror legitimate ones pixel-perfect.
“The festive season has always been a scammer’s paradise, but AI’s turned it into an industrial operation. Clone a site in minutes, generate thousands of personalised phishing emails, create fake social proof, all automated, all sophisticated, all designed to exploit exactly the stress and time pressure Santander mentions.
“One practical tip that actually works? Don’t click email links ever. Type the website URL manually. It’s slower, it’s annoying, but it’s the difference between a legitimate purchase and watching your Christmas budget vanish into the dark web.”
“Smart consumers should stick to established retailers with physical addresses, use credit cards for online purchases to benefit from Section 75 protection, and resist social media advertisements offering unrealistic discounts on popular items.”
Rohit Parmar-Mistry, Founder at Burton-on-Trent-based Pattrn Data, also gave some practical advice.
He continued: “Santander is right to raise the alarm, but telling people to ‘be careful’ while scammers run wild on social media is like putting a plaster on a gaping wound. It is frankly embarrassing that tech giants use advanced AI to target us with hyper-specific ads yet claim they cannot detect the fraudsters exploiting their own platforms.
“Until regulation forces platforms to clean up, be your own firewall: hover, don’t click: Scammers mask malicious links. On a desktop, hover over the link to see the real destination URL. If it looks like gibberish or doesn’t match the brand, do not touch it.
“Conduct a reverse image search: Right-click product photos. If that ‘unique’ gift appears on 50 other sites, it’s a scam.
“And only use credit cards: bank transfers are a scammer’s dream. Use a credit card for Section 75 protection. Scammers weaponise urgency. If a sold-out toy is discounted on a random site, it doesn’t exist. We need less victim-blaming and more pressure on the platforms profiting from these ads.”
Patricia McGirr, founder at Burnley-based Repossession Rescue Network, reserved no festive cheer for the scammers.
She added: “This makes me sick to my stomach. These aren’t careless shoppers, they’re hardworking families desperately trying to do right by their kids, often on tight budgets where every penny’s already stretched. That ‘bargain too good to be true’ isn’t greed, it’s desperation and hope that maybe, just this once, they can afford the gift their child’s been asking for.
“Santander’s absolutely right to keep hammering this message, but here’s the brutal reality: no matter how many warnings we issue, scammers will always find people at their most vulnerable, tired, stressed, running out of time and options. The real tragedy isn’t just the stolen money.
“It’s the shame, the guilt, the spiral into debt trying to replace what was taken, and the mental health toll of explaining to your children why Christmas didn’t arrive. We need protection that matches the threat, not just better warnings.”
