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When is fraud most likely to happen?

Fraud can happen at any time, but there are a few “golden” opportunities that business should consider. Here are some of the situations that may signal an uptick in fraud.

New online customers: During the pandemic, in-store shopping was replaced with ecommerce, forcing consumers to adopt online shopping with no warning. Those new ecommerce customers didn’t have the prowess to recognize phony websites, phishing emails, or COVID-related fraud schemes. As a result, they became much more susceptible to compromising their own credit card and banking information, which led to rampant fraud.

Data hacks: When criminals hack into banking or social media databases and steal millions of customer credentials, businesses should expect to see an increase in fraud attempts. The stolen credentials are sold on the dark web to fraudsters, who then hire botnets to commit fraud at scale. When these botnets find a vulnerable site, they can quickly overwhelm it with small-value card-testing orders or high-value purchases of goods for resale.

Peak seasons: Fraudsters often seize the opportunity to sneak in fraudulent orders during peak sales seasons, when companies can struggle to accurately process each and every order … that is, if they don’t have a comprehensive fraud prevention strategy.

Related Topics

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