San Francisco, CA: April 29, 2026 – Peak shopping season is when attackers work hardest. AARP's 2025 Holiday Shopping and Scams Survey found that 89% of US adults had been targeted by, or had experienced, at least one form of fraud, and 39% had been defrauded when buying a product through an online ad.
Europe shows the same pattern. A Mastercard survey reported that 29% of respondents had lost money to a scam while shopping for the holidays, and 10% had received counterfeit goods in previous seasons. Security researchers at CloudSEK identified more than 2,000 holiday-themed fake stores imitating well-known retailers in late November 2025 alone.
Many of these shops copy a brand's photography, product names and even customer reviews. They are launched cheaply, promoted with paid ads and abandoned within days, which is why waiting for a customer complaint is already too late.
“A fake shop can be live, advertised and gone before the first complaint arrives. Detection has to run continuously, not seasonally,” says Daniel Hartley, Chief Revenue Officer at MarkScout.
MarkScout scans new domains, marketplaces and social ads for brand imitation, and files takedown requests with hosts, registrars, payment providers and platforms in parallel to shorten the time a fake store stays online.