TransUnion surveyed 7,384 adults in Canada, Colombia, Hong Kong, South Africa, the UK, and the US between 30 June and 6 July 2020. Among consumers reporting being targeted with digital COVID-19 schemes globally, 27% said they were hit with pandemic-themed phishing scams. Globally, 32% said they had been targeted by digital fraud related to COVID-19, and the top types of COVID-19 fraud they faced were: 

• Phishing 27%
• Third-party seller scams on legitimate online retail websites 21%
• Charity and fundraising scam 19%
• Unemployment scam 18%
• Fraudulent COVID-19 vaccines, cures, tests, and PPE 15%
• Fake insurance 15%
• Shipping fraud 14%
• Identity theft 14%
• Stolen credit card or fraudulent charges 13%
• Stimulus check scam 12%
• Someone changing your personal or account information via a call centre 12%
• Account takeover 11%

Also, to help prevent identity fraud that can result from phishing, TransUnion announced new enhancements to its Document Verification solution. Document Verification confirms a consumer’s identity in faceless and in-person channels by validating a government-issued identification document like a passport or driver’s license. It is part of IDVision with iovation, TransUnion’s flagship identity verification, consumer authentication, and fraud prevention solution suite, which unites personal and digital data into one of the most comprehensive data identity platforms in the world. Document Verification ensures that a government issued identification is genuine by:

• Validating the expiration date, and if the identification document is fake, lost, stolen or tampered with;
• Confirming the personally identifiable information (PII) in the identification document matches against TransUnion’s data identity of the consumer like an address and flagging any discrepancies;
• Enabling real-time fraud risk checks on the device used to capture the document;
• In some markets, verifying an ID matches against a government’s database of issued IDs.