Scammers Turn Christmas Into a Payments Stress Test

That anxiety is not theoretical. PYMNTS reported in early December that 78% of shoppers worry about a holiday fraud surge. When the majority of consumers already expect trouble, it is a signal of how much seasonal commerce has become a stress test for the payments ecosystem.

Shoppers Are Stressed and Multitasking

Holiday shopping changes how people behave. Consumers juggle work deadlines, travel, family obligations and last-minute gift lists while hunting for deals across email, social media and retail apps. The mindset becomes speed and completion, not verification.

Fraudsters build campaigns for that moment. Shipping alerts, delivery exceptions, account warnings and “limited time” promotions are designed to trigger quick action. The attack works best when the shopper is rushing and does not double-check the sender, the link destination or the merchant name at checkout.

Even when a consumer would normally pause, Christmas adds pressure. The cost of being wrong feels high: a late package, a missed gift, a ruined plan. Fraudsters exploit that urgency to get a click, a credential or a payment authorization.

More Purchases Mean More Places to Hide

Christmas also increases the raw number of transactions. That creates opportunity for fraudsters in two ways: it gives them more targets and it creates background noise.

First, the more times a consumer enters card details, logs in, saves payment credentials or uses a wallet, the more chances there are for compromise.

Second, the bigger the pile of legitimate purchases, the easier it is for suspicious charges to blend in. Small test transactions can look like a routine add-on or a quick digital purchase. Even a larger fraudulent purchase may not jump out when shoppers are scanning statements quickly or postponing reviews until after the holidays.

The fraud economy thrives on that delay. The longer an unauthorized charge sits unnoticed, the longer a fraudster can keep testing the account, escalating to higher-value purchases or attempting account takeover.

Goodwill Lowers Skepticism, and Scammers Know It

Christmas is also a high season for giving, and fraudsters weaponize goodwill. Donation appeals rise across email, social media and text messages, and many people want to help quickly, especially when a message is emotionally resonant.

PYMNTS Intelligence research underscores how common scam categories can be. In a May 2024 PYMNTS Intelligence report on thwarting scammers, financial institutions said lottery scams were the most widely-experienced at 24%, followed by tech support scams at 20% and gift card scams at 18%.  Those categories may not be “holiday branded” on their face, but the tactics map cleanly onto Christmas behavior: urgency, emotion, and a fast path to payment.

Gift Cards, New Phones, New Accounts

The holidays create a wave of newly activated targets. Gift cards remain attractive because they are easy to monetize and difficult to recover once drained or resold. They are also socially normalized during Christmas, which reduces suspicion around unusual gift card purchases or requests.

New devices are another seasonal weak spot. A new phone or tablet may not have biometric settings, account alerts, device-level protections or password managers fully configured. Security defaults may remain unchanged through the hectic first days of ownership.

Newly created accounts are equally appealing. Holiday shoppers often spin up accounts quickly to chase discounts, free shipping or loyalty perks. Those accounts may reuse passwords, skip stronger authentication settings, or be built on hurried identity checks. PYMNTS recounted that sign-up attacks increased 309% during the 2024 holiday season, a reminder that criminals do not only exploit payments, they exploit the creation of identities and access.

Holiday Schedules Slow Detection

Fraud also benefits from the way companies operate during the holidays. Many businesses run lighter staffing, slower approvals or modified schedules. Disputes and investigations can take longer to triage, and internal escalation chains may move more slowly.

That lag matters because fraud is a timing game. A delayed alert can mean additional transactions, additional accounts touched, and broader damage by the time the problem is noticed.

Roughly half alf of financial institutions said fraud had a negative impact on customer loyalty, and more than four in 10 said they suffered brand damage as a result. Christmas can magnify those downstream costs because the season is when consumers most want speed, certainty and reliable outcomes.

The Holiday Season Is Now a Fraud Strategy

Retailers and payment providers are responding with more automation and detection tooling, but the arms race is moving quickly. PYMNTS Intelligence reported in late October that more than half of retailers now use AI to catch fraudsters, yet only 37% use generative AI for fraud protection, even as 72% expect AI-driven fraud to be their top challenge by 2026.

That tension is the core Christmas dynamic: fraudsters scale attacks when consumers are distracted and businesses are stretched. The season delivers exactly what criminals need: a dense concentration of transactions, new accounts, emotional appeals and delayed responses.