Holiday payment fraud spikes every November and December because scammers know finance teams are rushed, short-staffed, and processing more invoices than usual. A single email asking to update bank details before the holiday break can drain a small business’s operating account in minutes. The fix costs nothing: slow down and verify any payment change by phone before the money moves.
Key takeaways:
- Business email compromise (BEC) cost victims over $3 billion in 2025, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.
- Fraud attempts cluster around Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and year-end closing, when approvals move faster and double-checks get skipped.
- Fake vendor payment-update emails are the most common version small businesses report.
- A callback to a known phone number, not the one in the email, stops most of these attempts cold.
- Gift card and wire requests from the owner sent while that person is traveling are a classic red flag during the holidays.
Why does fraud spike this time of year?
Payroll, year-end bonuses, holiday vendor orders, and charitable giving all move through the same accounts payable process in a compressed window. Staff take time off, approval chains get shortened to keep things moving, and nobody wants to be the person who delays a wire transfer the boss asked for. Fraudsters know this pattern well. Industry coverage of past federal warnings notes that business email compromise risk rises during the holiday season specifically because companies are reconciling outstanding payments and year-end obligations all at once.
What does a holiday payment scam actually look like?
Most cases follow the same script. A bookkeeper or office manager gets an email that looks like it came from a regular supplier, often using a domain that’s one letter off from the real one. The message says the vendor’s bank changed and asks for the next invoice to be paid to new account details. In a second common version, someone impersonating the owner or a manager texts or emails an employee directly, usually while that person is traveling, asking for gift cards or an urgent wire before a holiday deadline. The FBI’s guidance on these schemes, built from real case data, recommends verifying any vendor payment change by calling the business’s main line rather than a number supplied in the email itself.
How should a Naples or Fort Myers small business protect itself?
You don’t need a big security budget to close this gap. A few habits, applied consistently from Thanksgiving through New Year’s, cover most of the risk:
- Require a phone callback, using a number already on file, before acting on any request to change bank or payment details.
- Put a second person’s sign-off on any wire transfer or gift card purchase over a set dollar amount.
- Turn on multifactor authentication for email and accounting software, since a compromised inbox is how most of these scams start.
- Brief seasonal and part-time staff before the rush, since they’re the ones most likely to be handed an invoice they’ve never seen before.
If your team already uses layered email protections against AI-powered business email compromise, the holiday season is a good time to confirm those controls are actually catching spoofed vendor domains, not just known bad senders. It’s also worth revisiting how new vendors get added to your payment system in the first place; our guide on vendor management for Southwest Florida small businesses covers the approval steps that stop a fake vendor from ever reaching your accounts payable list.
What should you do if a request already looks suspicious?
Stop. Don’t reply to the email or text, and don’t call any number it provides. Look up the vendor or the person independently and call them directly. If money has already been sent, contact your bank immediately to request a recall, then file a report with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov. Acting within hours matters. Banks and IC3’s recovery teams have successfully clawed back fraudulent wires in cases reported quickly, but the window closes fast once funds move through multiple accounts.
Frequently asked questions
Why does payment fraud increase during the holidays?
Staff are out, approvals move faster than usual, and finance teams are juggling year-end invoices alongside gift and bonus payments. Scammers time fake vendor and executive emails to land when fewer people are double-checking requests.
What is the most common holiday scam aimed at small businesses?
An email or text that looks like it comes from a real vendor or the owner, asking to update bank details or rush a wire transfer or gift card purchase before a deadline.
How much money do businesses lose to this kind of fraud?
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded over 24,700 business email compromise complaints in 2025, totaling more than $3 billion in reported losses nationwide.
What is the single best defense against a fraudulent payment request?
Call the vendor or person back using a phone number you already have on file, not one listed in the suspicious email, before changing any bank details or sending payment.
A fake invoice is cheap to send and expensive to fall for. If you want a second set of eyes on how your business approves payments and protects email before the holiday rush hits full speed, SWFIT.io offers a free 15-minute IT and security review. Schedule yours here and we’ll walk through your current safeguards together.
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