Displaying items by tag: Christmas shopping

Australians have been warned to be careful when buying gifts this holiday season as losses to online shopping scams have already increased 42% this year as the country enters the busy Christmas-New Year period.

Australian consumers are set to fork out a whopping $1.3 billion online over the four days from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, amidst a growing trend of consumers moving their Christmas shopping to the earlier period of late-November than the traditional time of December.

More than $4 million has been lost to online shopping scams by Australians in 2019 so far - well in excess of the $3.8 million fleeced from unsuspecting consumers last year - and the losses are expected to mount over the busy Christmas shopping period.

With Christmas coming and gift-giving on everyone’s mind, consumer advocacy group Choice has warned consumers to check their homes for unsafe products after a year in which product recalls increased by 12%.