Online shopping scams: What BBB reports can tell us about holiday shopping risks

The holiday shopping season reliably sees huge spikes in retail shopping activity, including (and increasingly) online shopping activity. To better understand what types of online shopping scams are commonly reported in the shopping period surrounding the holidays, Incogni’s researchers examined 121,000 scam reports posted on the Better Business Bureau (BBB) website between January 1st, 2020, and September 30th, 2025. 

They characterized these scam reports along two dimensions:

• “Attributes” which are defined as the issues to which reporting consumers attributed their conclusions regarding having been scammed, and
• the product categories involved in each report.

This characterization then allowed the researchers to perform analyses along and across the two dimensions, searching for patterns and trends that could help consumers see warning signs early enough to ameliorate the effects of potential scams, if not avoid them entirely.

Key insights

• Online shopping scam report volumes have risen sharply in recent years, nearly doubling in 2023 and already averaging 2,550 reports per month in 2025.
• Unresponsive customer support was the most frequently reported issue, appearing in 46% of all online shopping scam reports.
• The non-delivery of products was mentioned in 35% of scam reports across the entire dataset.
• The impersonation of legitimate brands or websites was reported in 17% of cases.
• Fake tracking information appeared in 10% of reports and increased by 16% during the holiday season, on average.
• The clothing and shoes, home and kitchen, and patio, lawn and garden product categories were the most likely to include mentions of fake tracking information, which appeared in over 15% of associated reports.
• Health and household and beauty and personal care products were more likely to be linked with unauthorized and/or recurring charges.
• Reports pertaining to items from the tools and home improvement and sports and outdoor product categories frequently mentioned unusually low prices.

Online shopping scam report trend overviews

Looking at the data from 2020 onwards, 121k of the reports submitted to the Better Business Bureau (BBB) fall under the category of online shopping scams.

A pattern of scam reports increasing around December was observed for each year. Another notable increase in volume was observed occurring in early summer (June and July), tending to fall off before the winter holiday season. 

The dataset captures an average of around 1,380 online shopping reports per month in 2020; 1,220 per month in 2021; and 1,160 per month in 2022. This was followed by a significant increase in 2023, where an average of 2,430 reports per month were submitted. There was a downturn to 1,980 reports per month in 2024, but then 2025 had already seen an average of 2,550 reports per month by the end of September. 

While this data does not allow us to derive actual ratios of online purchases to scams, Incogni’s researchers opine that consumers are either more willing to publicly share instances of shopping scams or they’ve been encountering more scams. Notably, the numbers of online shopping scam reports don’t line up with estimates of online spending or purchase volumes for the same periods.

The problems consumers are reporting with their purchases

Incogni’s researchers extracted additional information from the reports, ascribing attributes to the reported scams. These “attributes” refer to the core problem or problems a given reporting consumer attributed to the online purchase that was the subject of their BBB report.

Among the studied BBB online shopping scam reports, the problem most commonly attributed by consumers to their purchases was unresponsive customer support, meaning that these consumers claim to have been unable to make contact with someone within the given company to help with their queries. Unresponsive support was mentioned in 46% of submitted reports. 

The second most common attribute was the non-delivery of products, which was claimed in 35% of scam reports. In third place was the impersonation of a legitimate brand or website by the seller, claimed in 17% of online shopping scam reports.  

Here are some other attributes and the rates at which they appeared in the BBB’s online shopping scam reports across the almost five years under review:

• Price significantly below market value – 6.6%
• False advertising regarding products – 16%
• Fake tracking information – 10.2%
• Recurring or unauthorized charges – 10%
• Poor quality products – 7.5%
• Delayed shipping – 7.1%

Scam-report attributes by product category

Incogni’s researchers broke down the reported scams by product categories. Out of the 120k reports collected, around 79k were able to be assigned to categories. The most frequently reported product categories were clothing and shoes, pets and pet supplies, and home and kitchen.

As discussed previously, Incogni’s researchers observed that, most frequently, BBB online shopping scam reports mentioned unresponsive customer support and the non-delivery of goods. Those findings apply to the dataset’s overall, but breaking down the results by product category reveals some different correlations.

The automotive and pet supplies categories were the most mysterious, with the associated scam reports lacking details that could put them into predefined scam-attribute categories. The clothing and shoes product category was the opposite, with more consumers reporting details that help researchers understand the nature of the alleged scams related to those products. 

However, of greater interest is the variation across categories. 

While each purchase should be handled with care, here are some select insights we could glean from the data:

• Health and household items and beauty and personal care products, were more likely to leave consumers feeling they’ve been saddled with unauthorized (and sometimes recurring) charges. 
• Tools and home-improvement items, as well as sporting and outdoor goods, that were the subjects of BBB online shopping scam reports were more likely to be priced significantly below market value.
• Health and household items, when mentioned in these scam reports, were more likely to be delivered (or at least consumers didn’t mention non-delivery), but were more likely to have been perceived as being falsely advertised than other product categories. 
• Groceries and gourmet food items, as well as the health and household categories, were less likely to carry the attribute of being significantly below market value.
• Over 15% of the scam reports associated with items from the home and kitchen, patio, lawn and garden, and clothing and shoes product categories included mentions of fake tracking information.

Holiday shopping and consumer scam reports

The volume of online shopping scam reports received by the BBB increased around each examined holiday season. In order to determine whether scam attributes differ over the holiday season, Incogni’s researchers looked at the proportion of all BBB online shopping scam reports referring to the given issues (attributes) both during the holiday season and outside of it.

Compared to the baseline of year-round statistics, several attributes were reported more frequently over the holiday period:

• Fake traffic information reports increased by 16% compared to the rest of the year
• Delayed shipping reports increased by 11%
• Purchase non-delivery reports increased by 9%
• Unresponsive customer service reports increased by 5%
• Legitimate website impersonation reports increased by 4%.

Notably, several attributes decreased in prevalence:

• Recurring charges appear 19% less frequently during the holiday season than the rest of the year.
• Prices significantly below market value appear 11% less frequently.
• Falsely advertised products appear 8% less frequently.
• Poor quality products were 3% less likely to be mentioned in scam reports during the holiday period than the rest of the year.

The researchers’ takeaway was that consumers should pay particular attention to the availability of customer support and signs that the company works with reputable shipping services when making online purchases around the holiday period.

Co-occurring scam attributes

Incogni’s researchers examined what issues were commonly identified as occurring together in the analyzed reports.

The researchers noted that online scams rarely exhibit only one attribute.

The research suggests that:

• It may be a strong indicator of a potential scam when two or more of the following appear together during a single transaction: non-delivery, fake tracking, unresponsive support, and delayed shipping.
• The impersonation of legitimate websites and brands, especially when paired with aggressive pricing, should be taken seriously, as it is often reported together with non-delivery.
• A very low price is no more likely to be mentioned in a scam report during the holiday period than at any other time. 
• As with the rest of the year, issues with shipping or support are disproportionately indicated in scam reports.
• Alleged cases of unauthorized recurring charges co-occurring (in the BBB reports) with claims of false advertising about products may indicate that some platforms are not clear about the means of payment, leaving users to interpret the offer as a scam.

Scam reports by product category and time of year

Incogni’s researchers were able to compare scam attributes by product category throughout the years versus the holiday seasons over those years. This research can be used to underscore specific issues consumers may encounter when making holiday purchases.

Product categories and scam attributes

Comparing the holiday period to the rest of the year:

• False advertising about products went up in report frequency during the holiday period for many product categories, including:
  • Computers and accessories
  • Automotive
  • Sports and outdoors
  • Entertainment collectibles.
• The promise of very low prices was mentioned more often in reports during the holiday period for the following product categories:
  • Tools and home improvement
  • Unique finds
  • Kitchen and dining
  • Beauty and personal care.
• Recurring or unauthorized charges were reported more frequently during the holiday season for the following categories:
  • Automotive
  • Clothing and shoes
  • Patio, lawn and garden
  • Sports and outdoors.
• The impersonation of legitimate brands or websites was reported more frequently for the following product categories:
  • Tools and home improvement
  • Apps and games
  • Collectible coins.
• Accusations of poor product quality in scam reports went up during the holiday season for the following product types:
  • Automotive
  • Unique finds
  • Cell phones and accessories
  • Sports and outdoors.

What this means for consumers

The implications for consumers are twofold: on the one hand, it’s important that seasonal fluctuations in, for example, delivery times or support-staff availability aren’t immediately taken as signs of fraud; on the other hand, clusters (or even single occurrences) of certain scam attributes can indicate fraudulent activity.

More specifically, Incogni’s research uncovered that delayed shipping was reported to the BBB 11% more often and non-delivery 9% more often during the holiday period than during the rest of the year. How much of this can be attributed to normal logistical peak periods and how much to fraudulent activity on the part of the retailers is difficult to parse, given the available data.

However, the fact that the impersonation of legitimate websites and brands, when coincident with aggressive pricing, is often reported together with non-delivery is valuable to the consumer in and of itself. A consumer faced with a product of dubious provenance displayed on a suspicious website can know that, statistically speaking, based on BBB data, they’re unlikely to receive their purchase if they proceed with the transaction.

Of the nine scam attributes identified in the dataset, the following are strong indicators of a scam, even if encountered in isolation:

• Impersonation of legitimate brands or websites
• False advertising regarding products
• Fake tracking information.

In fact, the first two are, in and of themselves, examples of fraudulent activity, come what may. The third leaves some room for interpretation, but if a tracking number is confirmed to be fake, then at least some kind of fraud or deception has taken place.
The remaining six are features of both regular e-commerce and holiday online shopping scams. Here, the consumer needs to be guided by general advice on how to spot scams early as well as general online safety best practices. Incogni’s research can add a level of statistical confidence and specificity that would otherwise be unavailable.

Methodology

The Incogni research team examined consumer reports posted on the Better Business Bureau (BBB) website, specifically collecting reports pertaining to online purchase scams. The investigated sample included reports from January 1st, 2020, to September 30th, 2025. 

Data was collected over the period 1–5 October, 2025. An LLM (Large Language Model) was used to process the collected reports, categorizing the descriptions and ascribing “attributes” to them. These attributes were derived manually by the researchers, based on a sample of the reports. The LLM was also used to classify the type of product that was mentioned in each BBB online purchase scam report. Around a third of the reports did not contain enough information to confidently classify the given products into pre-defined categories. The product categories are based on Amazon’s product categories, with some adjustments.

The analysis focused on the attributes that were derived from the scam reports, comparing frequencies of mentions of attributes during the holiday season and the rest of the year.

This study assumes that consumers are just as likely to include details in their scam reports throughout the other parts of the year as they are over the holiday period. The validity of this assumption was interrogated by measuring the length of reports submitted at various times of the year. Report length was found, on average, to hold steady throughout the year. 

Public dataset available here.

Notes on data:

Scam attributes and product categories were derived using an LLM to process the report descriptions which could lead to some errors. However, manual review indicated that the categorization is very accurate, with the examined sample revealing no inconsistencies.

Intuitively, some attributes are less likely to be mentioned by the person who reported the scam. Therefore, comparing rates of attributes is less insightful than comparing attribute frequency over time.

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