London, UK: May 19, 2026 – Price is the lever counterfeiters pull hardest. In Mastercard's European holiday survey, 29% of respondents reported losing money to a scam while shopping, and 10% had received counterfeit goods. Pew Research Center found in the US that 17% of online shoppers had been sent a counterfeit product and could not obtain a refund.
The sellers behind these sites rarely look suspicious at first glance. They use professional photography copied from the brand, a believable domain and prices set a little below the official ones, enough to attract attention without sounding too good to be true.
Shoppers are often not aware they bought a fake until the product arrives, and by then the seller has changed name or closed the site.
“The discount is the bait. The best protection is a quick takedown of the page before it appears in a shopper's search results,” says Hannah Fletcher, marketing and events manager at MarkScout.