Conditioning Consumers for “Unbelievable Deals”

Holiday promotions, such as those on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, train consumers to expect steep discounts. Scammers take advantage of this consumer behavior by creating fake online sales events to exploit consumers searching for the best deals. For brand protection teams, the challenge lies in distinguishing real deals from fraudulent ones, especially when counterfeiters use similar messaging and visual cues.

Fake Urgency and Scarcity Tactics

Holiday sales represent the last opportunity for brands to boost their earnings before the year end closing. Even legitimate promotions often use tactics like “countdown” clocks or phrases such as “only 2 left!” to encourage impulsive purchases at the last minute.

Scammers leverage the same tactics to pressure consumers to make quick decisions, often leading them to purchase counterfeit goods. These promotional tactics can compromise the efforts of brand protection teams, who work to educate consumers on recognizing phrases that create a sense of urgency as red flags for fraud.

Combining Deep Discounts with FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)

During holiday promotions, brands often promote specific discounts, like “50% off everything,” to attract shoppers. Scammers exploit this tactic by creating similar, tempting offers to lure unsuspecting consumers. For instance, an email with the subject line “50% Off Everything — Even New Arrivals!” can be especially compelling, as new items are typically excluded from sales. This technique plays on consumers’ fear of missing out (FOMO), prompting them to act quickly without checking the authenticity of the offer.  

Extreme Discounts on Unfamiliar Platforms or Pop-Up Ads:

Scammers often advertise discounts that seem too good to be true, especially on luxury brands, with markdowns of 80-90%— way beyond typical holiday sales. These fake deals usually appear on websites or pop-up ads with limited customer service information and unreliable contact details.

Brand protection teams can look for unusually low-priced items from unverified resellers, as these tend to vanish after the holiday rush. It also makes sense to monitor high-risk channels like social media ads, private groups, which include Facebook, Discord, Telegram, MeWe, and even Instagram, and sub-marketplaces such as Craiglist, ThredUp or OfferUp in addition to regular channels before they harm customers.

Fake Shipping and Order Confirmation Scams:

During the holiday rush, scammers often impersonate major retailers to send fake shipping information or order confirmations. These emails or SMS messages prompt customers to “track their package” through malicious links or phishing pages.

For order or shipping related scams, brand protection teams can monitor spoof email domains, altered brand names, or unusual traffic reported from customer service lines regarding fake orders or shipping information. It can also be highly effective to remind customers to verify order or shipping details directly on official websites in preventing phishing scams.

Suspicious Domain Registrations:

Fake domains and lookalike websites are central to most fraudulent promotional campaigns. Scammers create URLs that closely resemble legitimate brands, using subtle misspellings (e.g., “amazoon” for “amazon”), keywords like “official” or alternate domain extensions (e.g., .net instead of .com) to lure consumers into phishing schemes and fraudulent sales.

Brand protection teams can actively monitor new domain registrations through advanced monitoring tools, set alerts for potentially infringing sites, and proactively register common misspellings or variations of their official domain to combat these attacks before they cause significant harm.