“Alarming Visa Report: Increase in Payment Fraud in 2023”
Visa Report: 2023 Marks a Period of Intensive Payment Fraud
The Visa Report analyzing payment and financial fraud from June to December 2023 revealed troubling information regarding the growth in the scale of fraud during this period. Despite a decrease in the number of individual fraud reports, the total losses have increased, indicating more sophisticated, effective, and costly actions by fraudsters.
Most Common Consumer Frauds
According to the report, the most commonly encountered types of consumer frauds are:
- Lovestruck Swindles – exploiting occasions like Valentine’s Day or New Year’s Eve through social media platforms and dating portals.
- Inheritance Deceptions – informing victims of a supposed inheritance from a distant relative, often through fake legal firms.
- Humanitarian Aid Frauds – using tragic events as a pretext for scams on social media platforms.
- Triangulation Frauds – creating fake online shops offering products at attractive prices to gather payment information.
Trends in Organizational Fraud
Furthermore, the Visa report highlights the increase in trends of organizational fraud, which include:
- An increase in attacks on supply chains and third-party services.
- Fraudsters utilizing artificial intelligence to detect loopholes in banks’ anti-fraud systems.
- An 83% increase in Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks, causing potential bank losses of around $115,000 per successful attack.
- A 300% rise in ransomware cases between June and December 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.
Preventive Actions Taken by Visa
Faced with a growing number of frauds, Visa has taken specific remedial measures aimed at eliminating attacks on the payment ecosystem. The company collaborates with participants in this ecosystem to enhance fraud protection and ensure the security of financial transactions.
