When Christmas and the holiday season comes around, various types of online  scammers do their utmost to part consumers from their money.

Fraudsters can make almost anything into an online scam, Better Business Bureau reports: Puppies. Beauty products. “Men’s health” items like erectile-dysfunction drugs.

BBB regional offices recently issued a series of warnings about the problem. BBB’s Springfield director, Stephanie Garland, said that the nonprofit watchdog group sees online shopping scams as misfortunes that flare up around the holidays but continue year-round.

Since January 2021, BBB performed three distinct consumer surveys to learn more about U.S. shoppers and their behavior online, Garland said. What the nonprofit watchdog group found is that most consumers would rather shop local, but that the majority of them are also shopping online due to convenience factors, in part due to pandemic-era conditions but especially because they want to save precious minutes better spent with loved ones.