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McAfee’s 2024 and 2025 holiday findings point to two related risks: more convincing scam messages and online offers that imitate well-known brands. The figures come from McAfee surveys, email observations and web-reputation telemetry—not an independent count of every scam or victim. For shoppers, the most useful response is simple: don’t trust an ad, celebrity endorsement or delivery alert on appearance alone. Verify it through the retailer’s official website or app.
What McAfee reported about holiday scams
McAfee’s findings span different years and methods. Its November 15, 2024 U.S.-focused release summarized a consumer study and McAfee Labs’ observations of unsolicited email. Its November 24, 2025 release described web-reputation telemetry from October to November 2025 and a separate survey conducted in August. These measures should not be combined into a single estimate of scam prevalence.
2024: deepfake endorsements and unsolicited email
In its 2024 Global Holiday Shopping Scams Study release, McAfee reported that 21% of surveyed Americans had unknowingly paid for fake products endorsed by deepfake celebrity versions. The reported share was one in three among respondents aged 18–34, compared with around 5% among shoppers aged 55 and older. These are survey responses reported by McAfee, not independent population-wide prevalence estimates. McAfee’s 2024 study release also said 59% of Americans were more concerned about online scams than at the same time the previous year, and 88% believed AI was affecting the number and sophistication of seasonal scams.
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McAfee Labs separately observed unsolicited seasonal email activity rising from early October to early November 2024: Black Friday-related emails increased 495%, and Christmas-related emails increased 314%. Those percentages describe McAfee’s observed email activity over that comparison period; they are not a measure of how many shoppers were scammed.
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The release also reported that 59% of surveyed respondents had seen fake missed-delivery or delivery-problem notices, 44% had received alerts about a purchase they did not make, and 35% had seen Amazon security alerts or account-update notices. These figures refer to different kinds of reported exposure and should not be read as one shared victimization rate.
2025: brand impersonation in web telemetry
McAfee Labs’ November 24, 2025 analysis used web-reputation telemetry for real-world activity observed from October to November 2025. Researchers queried curated brand keywords formatted to resemble typical web addresses. A visit attempt to a site flagged by McAfee counted as a scam hit, and repeat attempts were included; results were presented as scam-related hits over total web traffic for the period. This is a vendor telemetry snapshot, not a census of fraudulent sites or unique victims.
Within that analysis, McAfee ranked Apple, Nintendo, Samsung, Disney and Steam as the five most impersonated mainstream consumer brands. Its top five luxury brands were Coach, Dior, Ralph Lauren, Rolex and Gucci. McAfee reported that Coach generated roughly 45% more scam-related URLs than Dior, the next luxury brand on its list. These rankings apply to McAfee’s method and observation period, not necessarily to all scam activity online. McAfee Labs’ 2025 holiday analysis provides its account of the methodology and results.
2025: a separate consumer survey
McAfee also reported results from a separate online survey of 8,600 adults conducted in August 2025 across Australia, France, Germany, India, Japan, the UK and the U.S. In the U.S. results, which McAfee says were weighted for national representation, 91% of respondents said they were seeing ads from unfamiliar retailers, and 57% said they were more worried about AI-generated scams than the previous year. These are survey answers, not telemetry counts, and they should not be merged with the brand rankings.
Why deepfake endorsements and brand impersonation are difficult to spot
AI tools can help scammers produce convincing copies of trusted messages, celebrity faces and voices, and websites. McAfee threat research head Abhishek Karnik described the risk in the 2024 release: “Using AI-powered tools, scammers can now more quickly and easily create near-perfect imitations of trusted brand messages, celebrity faces and voices, and websites.” A recognizable logo, familiar face or polished video therefore does not prove that an offer is genuine.
Visual or audio inconsistencies—such as unnatural blinking or lip movements that do not match speech—may be clues, but they are not a dependable test. Synthetic media can look convincing without obvious errors. Verify the offer through an independent route rather than trying to decide authenticity from the video alone.
How to check a holiday deal, celebrity ad or delivery alert
- Do not follow the unsolicited link. If a deal, delivery problem or account warning arrives by email, text or direct message, avoid clicking its link or opening unexpected attachments.
- Open the official retailer app or type its known address yourself. Check the product, order or account notice there. For a delivery message, use the carrier’s official site or app and enter the tracking information you already have.
- Check the offer independently. Search for the product on the retailer’s official site and compare the details. Treat pressure to act immediately, unusually attractive pricing, or requests for gift cards, wire transfers or personal information as warning signs.
- Do not use the celebrity endorsement as proof. Look for the same promotion on the brand’s official channels, reached independently. If it appears only in a suspicious ad or video, do not provide payment or account details through it.
- Protect accounts and payment methods. Use strong, unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication. Review bank and credit-card statements for unfamiliar charges; these precautions reduce exposure but cannot guarantee a scam will be stopped.
McAfee’s 2025 release recommends slowing down, verifying what you see and using tools that can flag suspicious links or pages. That is the company’s advice, not an independent evaluation of any particular tool’s effectiveness. The basic verification steps above remain useful even when a security tool is available.
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What to do if you interacted with a suspected scam
- Stop the conversation and do not enter more information. Do not send further payment, codes, identity details or account credentials.
- Change affected passwords. Start with the account involved, then update any other account where you reused that password. Enable two-factor authentication if available.
- Contact your bank or card issuer about suspicious charges. Use the phone number or contact route on the card or the institution’s official website, not details supplied in the message.
- Check the device if you downloaded something. If you installed an unexpected file or app, scan the device with trusted security software and remove anything identified as malicious.
- Report the impersonation. Notify the retailer or platform being copied and use the appropriate national fraud-reporting channel for your country.
These response steps reflect McAfee’s consumer guidance; the right reporting body depends on where you live. McAfee’s guide to responding after a scam also advises stopping engagement, securing affected accounts and checking payment activity.
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