As the holiday seasons approach rapidly, businesses are preparing for increased sales and unknown factors derived from the Covid-19 pandemic. Many professionals predict that eCommerce sales will increase drastically as people continue to follow safer at home guidelines and make their holiday purchases online. With this large increase in online traffic and sales, it is critical to maintain a safe and secure platform for your consumers to shop risk-free.
At PayFrog, we place security and fraud prevention at the forefront of all of our products. Whether it is in our hardware, software, virtual, or in person, we believe that your security and the security of your consumers are pivotal. With the shift towards online sales and the increased online traffic, this is more important than ever.
Ecommerce Trends 2020
According to the National Retail Federation (NFR), sales during the 2020 season will increase between 3.5 percent and 4.1 percent, yielding more than $3.9 million. This is despite the recent loss in sales due to the coronavirus. Additionally, they predict that online sales will grow between 12 percent and 15 percent. Although these percentages seem rather minimal when referring to trillions of dollars, they are drastically different from previous years, presenting new issues and new opportunities for fraudulent activities throughout Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and holiday shopping.
Why Is Fraud a Problem for Online Stores?
Ecommerce fraud is not only a costly problem for your consumers, but it also has an adverse effect on your business’s credibility, reputation, and bottom line. There are many types of fraud that can have a negative impact on you and your customers.
What is Classic Fraud
Unsophisticated people typically commit classic fraud. Most commonly done by stealing or purchasing pertinent credit card information. This can be done in many ways, ranging from visiting the dark web to purchasing your information, stealing mail, or even just accessing bank accounts or other large ticket accounts. Then the information obtained can be used to commit fraud by buying large items on your credit card or things of that nature.
What are Chargebacks or Friendly Fraud
Chargeback fraud is conducted when a shopper makes a purchase and then issues a chargeback claim stating that their card was stolen or charged without their permission. The chargeback will often be conducted after the item has been delivered to them. This is an attempt to obtain a refund from the company or the credit card company, or even simply receive two of the same item for the price.
What is Account Takeover
Account takeovers happen when a hacker obtains access to account information via email or by using brute force bots to breach an account. Once they have breached the account, they can then gain control over it, altering any pertinent information, including addresses, names, emails, etc. In the case of an account with a saved credit card, the hacker will now be able to make purchases and send them to the new address and receive all of the emails via the new email. In the event of an email account takeover, the hacker will have the ability to obtain control over any account that uses that email using password recovery features.
What is Interception Fraud
An interception fraud is typically conducted by the fraudsters creating orders using matching billing and shipping addresses that are linked to a card. After making the purchase, they will try to intercept the package in a few ways.
- Requesting the customer service reps to change the address prior to shipping the item
- Attempting to reroute the package to an address that they can access.
- In some cases, the fraudster can wait at the address attached to the card and retrieve it from their porch.
2020 Ecommerce
As internet sales traffic increases by 15%, fraudulent activities will follow suit. This is mainly because there will be more opportunities for hackers or fraudsters to obtain or intercept the information. Businesses need to be aware of these increases and ways that they can prevent eCommerce fraud. In addition to this, many companies have begun to roll out their Black Friday sales less traditionally. Since they anticipate less foot traffic in the brick-and-mortar stores, they prepare their eCommerce sites for fraud prevention and credit card security. These stores are also spreading their sales out over the days before and after Black Friday and Cyber Monday in an attempt to relieve some of the eCommerce pressure for both inventory and even credit card fraud prevention.
Ecommerce Fraud Prevention | Payfrog
At PayFrog, we recognize that the Holiday season can be stressful for both small and large businesses. Between balancing large promotions, increased eCommerce sales and risks, holiday shopping, and much more. We truly believe that eCommerce merchant services and secure customer credit card data storing systems are the key to your headache. eCommerce fraud prevention is a technical and ever-changing aspect of eCommerce and presents challenges for even the best technology. With so many things hanging in the balance, let PayFrog and our team of skilled credit card processing personnel develop a personalized plan for your company. You can win the upcoming battle against eCommerce fraud using our state-of-the-art technology and software. If you are interested in eCommerce fraud prevention, eCommerce merchant services, or our secure customer credit card data storage, call or visit PayFrog today!
