TransUnion research shows that fraudsters decrease online schemes against companies

According to the press release, TransUnion came to its conclusions about fraud against businesses based on intelligence from billions of transactions and more than 40,000 websites and apps contained in its flagship fraud prevention solution, IDVision with iovation. The company  found that the percent of suspected fraudulent digital transactions against businesses worldwide decreased by 9% from the beginning of the pandemic (‘phase 1’, 11 March - 18 May) to when businesses began reopening (‘phase 2’, 19 May - 25 July). 

TransUnion’s Consumer Financial Hardship surveys found consumers targeted by digital COVID-19 schemes increased by 10% from the early days of the pandemic (week of 13 April) to more recently (week of 27 July). Moreover, in contrast to the recent suspected fraud decrease against businesses, when comparing ‘phase 1’ to right before the pandemic (1 January – 10 March), there was a 6% rise in suspected digital fraud against businesses, while comparing digital transactions pre-pandemic to during the pandemic (11 March - 25 July), as suspected fraud against businesses remained relatively flat, increasing by only 1%.

Therefore, the data shows that fraudsters appear to assume that travel and leisure companies are scrutinising transactions less in order to capture more revenue as the pandemic continues to negatively impact their business. Besides, the telecommunications, ecommerce, and financial services companies – all industries that have fared relatively well during the pandemic – were targeted with the most digital fraud early in the pandemic. However, these segments are now are among the least targeted. 

Consequently, this shows that fraudsters initially targeted the hottest industries with the most money to be had early in the pandemic in order to hide behind the rush of transactions, making now an obvious shift, TransUnion reported. Additionally, the company found that the countries with the highest percentage of suspected fraudulent transactions were Kazakhstan, Greece, and Cyprus, while in the US, the cities with the highest percent of suspected fraudulent transactions were Livonia (Mich), Akron (Ohio), and Jackson (Miss).

Besides, to better understand the impacts of COVID-19 on consumers, TransUnion surveyed 8,265 adults in Canada, Colombia, Hong Kong, South Africa, the UK, and the US, in the week of 27 July. 32% of the respondents said they had been targeted by digital fraud related to COVID-19, with Gen Z (age 18-25) being the most targeted at 36%.