This year's Black Friday shopping bonanza is set to be the most fraudulent on record as retailers are planning to bombard consumers with 40 million texts.

Today Action Fraud is warning shoppers to avoid clicking on links in shopping-related SMS and Whatsapp messages, over fears that criminals are jumping on a boom in legitimate "special offer" texts to steal people's details.

Shoppers will receive twice as many text messages as last year notifying them of special offers in store, with the total number rising from 25 million over last year's Christmas period to 40 million this year, according to bulk text message provider Infobip.

This year shops like OA.com and L'Occitaine are sending texts instead of emails to tell shoppers about offers. This is due to a rise in phone shopping, and them realizing that consumers are more likely to open texts than emails.

According to Infobip 95 per cent of text message recipients open them, compared to less than a quarter (23 per cent) of email recipients.

But because they are so effective at grabbing consumers' attention, Barclays has identified text messages the fastest rising communication method being hijacked by criminals to steal money from unsuspecting victims. The bank is also warning that Christmas 2017 will be the UK’s most fraudulent ever for online shoppers.