Fraud trends to watch in 2020

Cybercriminals are upping their game for bigger paydays. According to a recent Forbes article, online transactions will remain a favorite target of financial fraudsters in 2020, but they’ll become more brazen. With fraud prevention technology improving, many fraud purchase attempts are being stopped right away – and fraudsters are losing patience. Instead of trying a small, low-value purchase to see if it’s authorized, they’ll attempt that big-ticket fraud purchase on the first shot, the article says.

Fighting online fraud is a recurrent cat-and-mouse game, and it’s unlikely to change in the future, especially with the use of digital payments and e-commerce continuing to rise. While advances in digital alerts and fraud scoring models have allowed credit unions to better identify fraud activity and empower members to actively control the management and security of their card accounts, fraudsters are always trying to outsmart these technologies.

Until recently, fraudsters’ primary scheme has been to make lower-dollar attempts before going for the large purchase. This helps tell the fraudster that the card number is valid. Many fraud scoring models have adapted to catch this fraud on the first or second attempt using algorithms with various transaction elements including merchants, time of day, location, etc. Knowing this, fraudsters are increasingly bypassing small transactions and capitalizing on big-purchase items instead, especially during holidays when shoppers are spending more, or when a new smartphone model is released, so that they’re more likely to blend in with legitimate member spending.

 

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