Holiday Scam Statistics 2026

Formula. ULC = non-payment/non-delivery losses ÷ complaints, same year, same segment, same IC3 release. The white tick marks the all-ages ULC™ of $8,913. Each step up the age ladder buys a bigger-ticket item and loses more on it: a complaint from someone in their twenties averages $4,442, from someone over 60, $13,039. Age-tagged rows cover the complaints that carried an age; IC3 leaves untagged complaints out of its age tables.

Reading the gauge. Centre line = parity (1.00×); scale runs 0× to 2×. 2024 inverted because under-60 losses spiked to $16,902 per complaint, not because older shoppers lost less — their ULC™ rose every year, from $8,818 to $10,044 to $13,039. Under-60 = (all − 60+ losses) ÷ (all − 60+ complaints).

How to read it. Horizontal: share of all BBB Scam Tracker reports (exposure). Vertical: share of those reports with a money loss (susceptibility). Bubble size: median loss. Online purchase scams sit alone in the high-exposure, high-loss corner — the commonest scam is also the one that almost always takes the money. Arrows show the 2024→2025 move.

Source. BBB Scam Tracker Risk Report 2025, Table 3 — most mentioned products in online purchase and counterfeit scam reports. Tile area scales with mentions. Apparel draws more mentions than pets and cars/machines combined (6,194); toys and collectibles, the classic December category, register 1,376.

Recovery context. BBB found credit cards were the payment method in 44.7% of 2025 scam reports with a loss — the rail with a chargeback path. A crypto transfer has none, which is why the crypto row costs 1.80× more and is rarely recovered. Crypto bar: bright = share of complaints, dark extension = extra share of losses.

Scope. England, Wales and Northern Ireland reports to Action Fraud, 1 November to 31 January — Black Friday through the January sales. UK figures are shown in sterling and never added to U.S. totals.