Long Islanders have lost $26.4M to scams this year. Holiday shoppers face new risks
Holiday shoppers should be on the lookout for fake online stores, fraudulent ads and other scams that can put their money and personal information at risk, consumer protection experts warn. Credit: Getty Images/Isabel Pavia
Fraudsters are targeting Long Islanders during the holiday shopping season with fake websites, bogus celebrity endorsements and other increasingly sophisticated scams.
The holiday season tends to bring an uptick in scams, according to experts who spoke to Newsday. Advances in artificial intelligence are making some scams harder to spot by helping fraudsters create more convincing websites and other content, said Kate Sherwin, director of the state Division of Consumer Protection.
“Just assume that everything is a scam from the start and then work backward,” Sherwin said. “We can't depend on some of the old advice about looking for misspellings or poorly fabricated old websites.”
Fake websites
The most common scams in New York, especially around the holidays, involve online shopping and retailers, Sherwin said. These scams can range from fake retailers that don’t send any products to companies that sell counterfeit products or items inferior to what’s shown in advertisements, she said.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
Scammers are exploiting the holiday season by using AI to create convincing fake websites and social media scams, making it harder for consumers to spot fraud.
Gift cards are a common target for scams, with fraudsters draining funds from cards taken off store racks.
- To avoid scams, consumers should independently verify online retailers, use traditional payment methods and report scams to financial institutions for potential reimbursement.
The tight economy might make people more susceptible to social media scams as they look for ways to buy lower-cost gifts, Sherwin said. The number of scam complaints reported by Long Islanders has increased every year since 2024, according to Sherwin. Reported scam losses in Nassau and Suffolk counties totaled $26.4 million through Tuesday, already surpassing the $24.2 million in losses reported in all of 2024, according to Division of Consumer Protection data. Long Islander consumers reported $26.3 million in losses to scams in 2025.
“Everybody is looking for a deal, and the number of scams on social media is just ballooning,” Sherwin said.
Retail and phishing scams also are getting more complex, making them harder to spot. Instead of just a fake website with a few photos, scammers can use AI to generate fake celebrity endorsements to make a product look more convincing, she said.
The Better Business Bureau received more than 200 complaints in 2025 about social media ads for weight loss supplements Lipomax and Prozenith that consumers believe used fake videos of Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities to sell products.
The holidays are a time of peak distraction for consumers as they juggle family obligations and the pressure to buy gifts in time for Christmas and other holidays, said Paige Schaffer, CEO of cybersecurity company Iris OnWatch. Schaffer recalled falling for a fake online store herself. She said she remembered purchasing a blanket from an online store, only to have it never arrive.
“Time pressure forces rushed decisions without proper verification,” Schaffer said.
Fake websites also can target other holiday anxieties. Concerns about packages arriving on time opens the door to package delivery scams, Schaffer said. In one version of the scam, consumers receive a fraudulent tracking link telling them they urgently need to reschedule a delivery or update shipping preferences, potentially exposing personal information, according to the FTC.
Gift card fraud
Gift cards, a common holiday present, also can become a vehicle for fraud, said Norman Silber, a law professor at Hofstra University.
Consumers should avoid buying a gift card off a rack at a store unless the rack is behind a counter, Silber said. Fraudsters can take cards from the rack, collect the code numbers from the back, and put them back on the store shelf. Silber told Newsday that a customer will then buy the card, only to find the funds have already been drained.
The scam also applies to cards that are loaded with money by a cashier at a store, according to Consumer Reports. Someone can take a code from a gift card and use it to steal whatever money a customer loads onto the card.
In a warning about gift card scams, the District of Columbia Office of the Attorney General advised consumers to buy gift cards from stores that keep them in a safe place — like behind a register instead of a display case — or from stores that add a bar code only once a card is purchased. The office also recommends that consumers pay for the gift card by credit, because a credit card company may be able to investigate the scam and help get your money back.
How to cope with scam
Despite the prevalence of scams during the holiday season, consumers can take steps to protect themselves. If someone sees a link to an online retailer on a social media platform or in their email inbox, they should search for the product online directly rather than clicking the link, said Nils Mueller, director of the North America chapter of the Global Anti-Scam Alliance. Consumers also should look at a company’s reviews on third-party websites, not just those featured on its website, he said.
The payment method a retailer asks for also can indicate a scam, Mueller said. Consumers should use credit cards whenever possible when shopping online because they offer protections that can help recover money if a purchase turns out to be fraudulent, according to the FTC.
Consumers should be wary of unfamiliar sellers that insist on payment through money-transfer apps such as Venmo. Scammers frequently ask for hard-to-reverse payments or nontraditional forms of payment, such as gift cards or cryptocurrency, according to the FTC. These forms of payment can be difficult to reverse and offer fewer consumer protections, so consumers who pay scammers this way often fail to get their money back, Mueller said.
If a consumer falls victim to a scam, they should promptly contact the bank, credit card company or payment service they used and ask whether the transaction can be reversed, according to the FTC.
According to a Global Anti-Scam Alliance study, 51% of survey respondents who reported scam-related financial losses said they had received reimbursement.
Consumers also can report scams to the Federal Trade Commission at reportfraud.ftc.gov.
“We need to have defenses built up and tactics,” Mueller said. "We need to talk about it so people feel like they actually have a chance here and can defend themselves.”
