Trend Micro survey finds overconfident, cost-pressured holiday shoppers at higher risk of AI-fueled online scams
Trend Micro published its Holidays, Scams, and AI survey of 6,536 consumers across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan (2,100 in the U.S.), conducted 31 October to 10 November 2025. It shows a gap between scam-spotting confidence and actual exposure: 56% of Americans are very or extremely confident they can spot a scam, yet 23% report being scammed in 2025, up from 17% in 2024. Economic pressure drives risky behavior, with 86% of U.S. respondents willing to buy from an unknown seller for a very good price. Trend says scammers use AI to build multi-step, multi-channel, hyper-personalized scams that unfold as stories rather than one-off messages. The release also promotes Scam Radar, a new feature in Trend's ScamCheck tool. It is a vendor survey and product announcement, not a specific incident.
Technical Details
- 43% of U.S. respondents have seen a suspected scam promoting discounted holiday gifts or travel, and 33% have seen brand-impersonating ads, emails, texts, social posts or websites.
- 68% of U.S. respondents have received scam delivery messages, and 31% have been asked to pay with gift cards.
- 32% of respondents earning $150,000 or more report being scammed this year, the highest income group.
- 82% expect to see AI-generated images or videos during the holiday season, and 52% are using or considering AI shopping tools.
- Trend cites its research paper "Reimagining Fraud Operations: The Rise of AI-Powered Scam Assembly Lines" on criminal use of AI to scale scams.
Remediation
- Verify deals in emails, social posts and texts before clicking, especially offers that look too good to be true.
- Check delivery status directly with the seller rather than through unsolicited texts.
- Treat gift card payment requests as a strong scam indicator and use trusted payment methods.
- Consider tools such as ScamCheck with Scam Radar for real-time scam alerts.
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Trend Micro survey finds overconfident, cost-pressured holiday shoppers at higher risk of AI-fueled online scams
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Trend Micro published its Holidays, Scams, and AI survey of 6,536 consumers across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan (2,100 in the U.S.), conducted 31 October to 10 November 2025. It shows a gap between scam-spotting confidence and actual exposure: 56% of Americans are very or extremely confident they can spot a scam, yet 23% report being scammed in 2025, up from 17% in 2024. Economic pressure drives risky behavior, with 86% of U.S. respondents willing to buy from an unknown seller for a very good price. Trend says scammers use AI to build multi-step, multi-channel, hyper-personalized scams that unfold as stories rather than one-off messages. The release also promotes Scam Radar, a new feature in Trend's ScamCheck tool. It is a vendor survey and product announcement, not a specific incident.
Technical Details
- 43% of U.S. respondents have seen a suspected scam promoting discounted holiday gifts or travel, and 33% have seen brand-impersonating ads, emails, texts, social posts or websites.
- 68% of U.S. respondents have received scam delivery messages, and 31% have been asked to pay with gift cards.
- 32% of respondents earning $150,000 or more report being scammed this year, the highest income group.
- 82% expect to see AI-generated images or videos during the holiday season, and 52% are using or considering AI shopping tools.
- Trend cites its research paper "Reimagining Fraud Operations: The Rise of AI-Powered Scam Assembly Lines" on criminal use of AI to scale scams.
Remediation
- Verify deals in emails, social posts and texts before clicking, especially offers that look too good to be true.
- Check delivery status directly with the seller rather than through unsolicited texts.
- Treat gift card payment requests as a strong scam indicator and use trusted payment methods.
- Consider tools such as ScamCheck with Scam Radar for real-time scam alerts.