Black Friday and Cyber Monday have turned into full-blown shopping festivals. The buzz, the countdowns, the one-click checkouts, but it’s also become open season for scammers.

This time of year, more people are online, wallets are open, and defences are down. Scammers know it. So before you chase that unmissable deal, here’s what you need to watch out for.

Think you’ve found the deal of the year? That brand-new Nintendo Switch 2 for your kids is half off. The perfect family holiday for summer next year, with flights included. That all-in-one beauty set your wife has been hinting at has 40% off… But they’re from sites you’ve never heard of.

You click on the page anyway because the deal is only live for 6 more hours. Slick and professional-looking logos, glossy high-quality photos, huge “too good to be true” discounts. You take a chance, you can’t miss out on this deal, and then? Nothing arrives, but they’ve taken the money out of your bank.

You go back and search for the site a week later to talk to customer support, but there are no results for the site. You dig deeper, looking at forums, social media, and even looking for your receipt they claimed you’d receive as an email. There’s no receipt, and you find a few people on social media calling that exact site a scam.

Fake online shops are everywhere this time of year. They’re built to disappear when the complaints pile up and encourage you to make quick decisions before digging deeper. If you’re lucky, you lose money. If you’re not, your data ends up on the dark web.

This is where the scams get sneakier. An email lands in your inbox: there’s an issue with your delivery, or a suspicious login to your Amazon account.  The email often looks legit; familiar looking logos, similar format to other (legitimate) emails you’ve received before and chances are the site is so popular you’ve likely ordered from them recently. There’s a link. You click. That one click might’ve just handed over your login, payment info, or worse.

Scammers use fear and urgency to push you into bad decisions. Chances are you’ve clicked too fast to realise the logo didn’t have the minor incorrect details as the last legitimate email you got from them. It’s all about pressure.

Tip: If an email asks you to click anything urgent, don’t. Go to the site manually, log in the usual way, and check for alerts there.

Some scams aren’t about tricking you into giving away data. They just want you to pay in the least secure way possible. Bank transfers, cryptocurrency, gift cards, if a seller is pushing these over safer methods like credit card or PayPal, take a step back.

Once that money’s gone, there’s often no way to get it back. By using these insecure methods, you’ll have less of a chance of ever seeing that money return to you if you are caught up in this type of scam.

Not every scam is found on a fake site. Some are hidden in sketchy apps or a pop up in Instagram story offering an “exclusive code” or secret deal. Others are placed behind innocent-looking QR codes stuck in windows or sent to you via group chats.

By scanning that offer claiming you’ll get a 2 for 1 deal on that exclusive spa day, you might be opening yourself up to have your information stolen. Or if it’s a deal claiming you’ll win a brand new car if you download the app, it might install some spyware allowing scammers to read your texts.

If you’re downloading anything at all, make sure it comes from an official app store and a known developer.

A scam doesn’t have to end at checkout. Many just target your data. Taking information like Name, email, address, date of birth, a scammer doesn’t need your bank details to make your life miserable.

With enough basic info, they can apply for credit, open new accounts in your name, or sell your identity on the dark web. If your login credentials are reused elsewhere, they might even worm their way into your email, social media or cloud storage.

First things first: don’t freeze. Don’t blame yourself. And don’t ignore it.

Scams are designed to trick smart, capable people. Falling for one doesn’t make you gullible, it makes you human. You’re not the first. You won’t be the last. But how you respond matters.

Act fast:

• Call your bank immediately. Report what happened. Ask them to freeze or cancel any cards involved. If they have taken money your bank may have procedures in place so you can get that back.
• Change your passwords, especially if you use the same one across different sites.
• If you clicked on a dodgy link, run a full antivirus scan. Look for strange activity on your accounts.

Then, report the scam:

• If it’s over email on social media you can report and block the account/email there.

The quicker you act, the better chance you have of stopping further damage and getting your money back. Speed really does make a difference.

Scammers love chaos. They thrive on panic buying, time-limited deals, and that Friday-night impulse click. This time of year creates the perfect storm for scammers to jump on to. So take a breath. Trust your gut. If something smells off, it probably is.

Bargains are brilliant. Getting scammed isn’t.