Surviving 'scam season' over the holidays
As consumers open their wallets and splash their cash over the upcoming holiday period, they should be aware that it’s a time when scammers are also getting busy.
Ben Young, Westpac’s Head of Fraud Prevention, says that that scammers sense an opportunity over the festive season as consumers increase their spending, and some items become scarce and in more demand.
“Things sell out over Christmas and there’s always some last-minute deal that people rush into buying, so we do observe a significant increase in activity and warn people to be wary,” says Young.
“Attack rates become higher, and people may let their guard down making them more vulnerable to a business impersonation or even a bank impersonation scam.”
The holiday season is a time when consumers need to be especially vigilant, for example when sending money to new payees, while businesses should make sure they’re on top of the latest software patching and any other potential maintenance gaps that could leave systems exposed to data breaches.
These are conditions that criminals look for and know how to exploit, often seeking access to personal data, email and social media accounts, or a way into organisations’ systems.
On the watchlist
All businesses should be on the lookout for Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams, where attackers impersonate executives and vendors to trick people into sending money. This is one of the most common tactics used by online criminals.
According to the Australian Signals Directorate, email compromise scams are the main cyberthreat reported by businesses, comprising 34 per cent of reported attacks.
The annual upswing of festive season travel, retail and hospitality sales also widens the potential attack surface for payments, with scammers often targeting concert tickets, hospitality bookings and online fashion purchases.
Young says that many scams play out over social media with scammers increasingly using artificial intelligence to fabricate images and videos in their attempts to convince buyers.
“Social media remains a key battleground for scammers as it gives them an easy way to reach people with low or no content moderation. We’re doing everything we can to detect and prevent scams but we can’t fight this alone and as scams evolve, they need to be shut down at the source.”
“For anyone shopping online or being served ads through social media, it’s important to be wary.”
Another common ploy scammers use is to persuade people to transfer their funds peer to peer, rather than paying for items with credit cards, with money transfers often going to the account of an Australian based “mule” who is working for people based offshore.
“We have systems in place to help detect this activity and urge customers to be vigilant if ever they’re asked to accept funds and transfer them elsewhere, as it means they could be complicit in a scam,” says Young.
Systems and Processes
Westpac has a dedicated team working 24/7 on scam and fraud prevention applying expertise across technology, operations and digital and data domains to combat the scourge of fraud.
Westpac Verify, which was introduced in consumer-facing online banking in 2024, checks a payee’s name and, if there is a mismatch or the bank hasn’t seen those account details before, this is flagged with customers before they proceed to payment.
In the year to September 2025 there was a noticeable reduction in BEC scams, and in that year BEC losses fell by 25 per cent, with the bank attributing some of that directly to the impact of Verify.
For businesses of all sizes, Verify integrate the Confirmation of Payee function into Westpac’s PaymentsPlus payables solution in September 2025 to validate a payee’s name against verified account data.
The real-time security advantage
Chris Campbell, Head of New Payments and Payments Policy at Westpac, says the bank is constantly investing in improvements to its payments safety capabilities.
“Looking forward, from next year Westpac will integrate Confirmation of Payer into our receivables platforms PayWay and Quickstream,” he says.
“This will enable our institutional and business customers to check a payer’s account details before setting up a direct debit or PayTo mandate with that customer, materially reducing the effort of managing impersonation risk.”
These advances are occurring in an environment of real-time payments across Westpac’s platforms, where rapid alerts and confirmations are increasingly important to mitigate fraud and scam risk.
Westpac also introduced PayID Biller in late 2025, another real-time innovation, which reduces mistaken payments and invoice scams.
Corporate customers also have access to Westpac’s Dynamic Virtual Cards, which gives them a more secure and transparent way of managing employee and supplier expenses through individually tokenised cards for specific payments.
Collaborating to combat scams
Ben Young says consumers and businesses should be reassured by the heightened level of collaboration between the banks and law enforcement bodies in combating scams and cybercrime, but it’s important to stay vigilant.
“Banks detect a lot of scams before they occur and collaborate with other organisations, including law enforcement, to recover funds where possible and help to stop further activity,” he says.
Westpac utilises a combination of proactive intelligence sharing from across major banks via the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange (AFCX), and Westpac’s own security features and works directly with the Federal Police.
Young urges consumers and businesses to be wary when adding new payees and says that this is also a particular focus for his team.
“We do a lot of profiling around these payments and try to understand which ones might be suspicious,” he says. When these are identified it prompts a series of extra questions from the bank on the veracity of the payment, designed to make customers wary.
There is also a difference between a fraud, where payments are unauthorised, and scams, where people are tricked into sending money but do so voluntarily.
In many of these cases, says Young, the scammers have spent time with the victim, “coaching” them and, in some instances, telling them to be suspicious of genuine contact and warnings from their bank.
Chris Campbell says the key message is for customers, businesses and employees to be on heightened alert over the summer holidays.
“We know scammers continue to evolve their methods and will look to take advantage of people at this time of year. While Westpac is doing everything we can to help keep customers safe, we urge everyone to look out for the red flags this Christmas,” he says.
6 tips to protect against holiday scams
- Be sceptical of email messages, text messages, and other direct messages requesting payments, and extra careful if urgent action is demanded.
- Check supplier details and bank account numbers from your records or directly with the supplier by phone, not from suspicious emails.
- If new payee details are not verified by the bank, think twice about the payment.
- Enable multi-factor authentication everywhere it is offered.
- Always be careful with passwords and data, particularly if using public Wi-Fi networks.
- Be wary of people asking to be paid in crypto currency.
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