It usually starts with something small. A text saying a parcel could not be delivered. An email from a brand you half-recognise, offering 60 per cent off for one day only. A message from "your bank" about a payment you never made. December hands fraudsters two useful things at once: a lot of parcels in transit, and a lot of shoppers in a hurry.

Most festive scams are not clever. They are well-timed. They work because they arrive when you are tired, distracted, or genuinely waiting for a delivery. What follows is a practical checklist for the weeks either side of Christmas: what to look for, how to pay with more protection, and what to do if you have already clicked.

Fake delivery texts and emails

Couriers and Royal Mail are impersonated all year, but the volume climbs in December. The story is usually a failed delivery, an unpaid customs fee, or a parcel held at a depot. There is a link, and a small payment to release it, often just a few pence, because the point is not the money. It is the card details you type in afterwards.

Red flags worth knowing:

• The link goes to a domain that is not the courier's. Look past the logo and read the actual address.
• You are asked to pay a small fee to reschedule. Genuine couriers usually let you rearrange through their own site or app, using the tracking number from your order.
• The message manufactures urgency: "final attempt", "your parcel will be returned today".
• It arrives from an ordinary mobile number, or an email address that does not match the company's domain.

The safest response is to ignore the link. Open a new tab, type the courier's address yourself, and paste in the tracking number from your original order confirmation. If the parcel is real, it will be there.

Clone shops and the adverts that lead to them

A clone retailer is a copy of a real shop, often sitting on a similar domain: an extra hyphen, a different ending, a swapped letter. They advertise hard on social media and in search results during the sales, when people are most willing to buy from somewhere new.

Before you enter card details, run the boring checks. Does the site have a returns policy with a postal address, rather than a contact form? Is there a company number or registered address in the footer? Are the prices suspiciously low across the whole site? Is the only payment option a bank transfer or cryptocurrency? Any of those should stop you.

Two things people get wrong

A padlock in the address bar means the connection is encrypted. It does not mean the seller is honest. And reviews hosted on the shop's own site prove very little. Look for the retailer's name elsewhere: a Companies House entry, a social account with some history, mentions on forums the shop does not control.

Payment requests that should never arrive

Some scams skip the fake shop and go straight for the money, by asking you to pay in a way that leaves no comeback: a bank transfer to an individual, a gift card, a payment app, crypto. Anything irreversible.

• A "buyer" on a marketplace who overpays and asks you to refund the difference.
• A message claiming to be your bank, warning of fraud and asking you to move money to a "safe account". Banks do not do this, and neither do the police.
• A courier demanding a redelivery fee by transfer, or a seller wanting a deposit before you have seen the item.
• A screenshot of a payment confirmation, offered as proof the money is on its way. Screenshots are free to make.

If you are buying something expensive secondhand, meet in person, inspect it, and pay in a way that can be traced and disputed. Card payments generally give you more comeback than a straight bank transfer. If a seller insists on the method with the least protection, that is your answer.

Safer checkout habits for the next few weeks

1. Type the retailer's address yourself, or use a bookmark, instead of clicking through from a text, email or advert.
2. Use guest checkout on shops you do not know, and do not save card details there.
3. Pay by card, or with a virtual card or payment service that does not expose your main account.
4. Keep a separate email address for shopping. Phishing is easier to spot in an inbox that only receives order confirmations.
5. Turn on two-factor authentication for your email and your shopping accounts. Your email is the master key to everything else.
6. Check delivery and tracking details inside your account on the retailer's site, not through a link in a message.
7. Save the order confirmation, or screenshot it. If you dispute a payment, the order number and date matter.

If you have already clicked or paid

Act quickly, and do not feel foolish. These scams are built to look ordinary. Contact your bank or card provider straight away. Speed matters, particularly with bank transfers, which are harder to recover than card payments. If you entered passwords, change them, starting with your email. If you entered card details on a suspicious page, ask your bank to cancel the card.

Forward scam texts to 7726, the number UK mobile networks use to collect spam reports. Report the fraud to Action Fraud, or to Police Scotland if you are in Scotland. If an account or a parcel in your name has been misused, tell the retailer too.

This is general guidance, not financial advice. Your bank's fraud team can tell you what applies to your particular payment.

Five minutes now, fewer problems later

You do not need to become a security expert to shop safely this month. You need three habits: check the address before you type anything, choose a payment method that leaves you some comeback, and treat every unrequested link as guilty until proven otherwise.

Add one small routine. Before buying from somewhere unfamiliar, ask what you would say if you had to explain the purchase to a friend. If the honest answer is "it seemed like a bargain and I did not check", close the tab. The safest Christmas shopping is a little boring, and that is the point.

Photo: StockSnap / Pixabay