Some facts about fraud

We at Web-payment.ru , a site about payment systems with the monitoring of exchangers, are very concerned about the growth rate of bank card fraud. In Russia, losses from fraudulent transactions from 2006 to 2013 increased 10 times (according to FICO reports)! In 2012, according to Cybersource 2013 reports, electronic fraud cost the e-commerce industry $ 3.5 billion, and this is only in the United States. Which is 0.9% of the turnover.

Two reasons why 0.9% is an unacceptably large number:

• The loss of 0.9% of revenue is one-eighth of the industry average net profit margin (6.8%). Without fraud, the online commerce industry will become almost 13% more profitable.
• A business could reinvest this profit using methods that would help customers and the economy. For example, offering lower prices or hiring more employees.

The reputation of sellers suffers, they are forced to make returns and allocate resources to work with their worst customers. Buyers receive a price increase, are dissatisfied with the long pages of ordering and wait longer for their delivery.

One company that provides fraud detection software shared a list of transactions on its blog that are more likely to be dangerous:

• Fraudsters hold a bunch of dough on a pile of cards. If a client has many credit cards opened in different banks, the likelihood that his order is associated with fraud increases by 7 times.
• Fraudsters do not like capital letters. If a client fills in the column “Name” with lowercase letters, suspicion increases 2.7 times.
• Fraudsters (practically) never sit still. The likelihood that a customer who makes purchases using several different postal codes within one week, the likelihood that he does it illegally grows 30 times.
• Fraudsters prefer one-time email addresses. Mail addresses containing two or more digits in the name are twice as likely to be used by fraudsters than addresses containing less than two digits.
• Most scammers are night owls. The chance that a transaction carried out at 2 a.m. is illegal increases 1.5 times; at 4 a.m. this probability increases 2 times.

Largest Online Scams

Online fraud is very expensive. Target retail chain data leak at the beginning of this year was estimated at $ 200 million.

Let's go back in time to recall the 5 largest online scams of all time:

5. Dating scam worth $ 1.3 million

In 2013, Canadian pensioner Helen lost all of her savings worth $ 1.3 million due to Dave. “Dave” started a conversation with Helen and got the location of a lonely woman who thought she had found a life partner on the online dating site. Fraudsters on such sites choose vulnerable men and women as victims, and try to get money, gifts, and other services from them. Faking a personality, inventing your own story and making a connection while being on the other side of the screen is not difficult. As soon as criminals manage to trick a person into “relationships” in the digital world, it remains only to come up with plausible reasons for the victim to send money outside the country.

And although 1.3 million is a very small figure for our list, it is important to mention this fraud as the most expensive of its kind (fraud on dating sites). In addition, the most remarkable thing in this situation is that the woman gave away 1.3 million of her own free will.

By the way, a few facts ...

• In 2013, fraud on online dating sites cost victims $ 90 million .
• People who fall into online scams lose an average of about $ 21,000.
• Every tenth user profile on online dating sites is a fraudster profile.

4. ATM scam with theft of 85 million dollars by a criminal gang

The largest ATM scam of all time occurred in 2013, when computer hackers, having penetrated the systems of the largest processing companies, stole data from thousands of credit cards in a few minutes. After that, they used this information to steal $ 45 million from hundreds of ATMs around the world.

Despite the arrest of 8 New Yorkers and 2 Holland citizens after this attack, a few weeks later the industry was shocked by a similar operation: the criminals chose another processing company and another bank as their target. This time, hackers stole $ 40 million.

3. Theft of 200 million dollars by an international criminal gang of credit fraudsters

In the opening season of 2013, the FBI arrested 18 members of an international global criminal network that dealt with credit card fraud. This organization was responsible for the theft of $ 200 million. The scam consisted of falsifying 7,000 identities to steal thousands of credit cards that were used to “borrow” large sums of money. To get this money, scammers overestimated the credit limits of the false “customers” they created by providing fake information to the credit bureau.

2. Loss of $ 200 million from an international criminal organization

The world's most severe computer crime sentence - 20 years in prison - was announced by the US Federal Court in 2010. Hacker Albert Gonzalez was found guilty of leading a notorious international criminal organization that stole data from hundreds of millions of credit cards by hacking into the accounts of various retail stores. Acting under the hacker pseudonym SoupNazi, Gonzalez personally saved $ 2.8 million, which he used to live on a grand scale, acquiring luxury cars and Rolex watches.

According to authorities, a scam cost a business $ 200 million. The total economic loss is estimated at more than $ 1 billion.

1. The largest cybercrime ever recorded in US history

In July 2013, after five years of investigation, federal agents arrested 5 people for hacking Nasdaq, Visa, Citibank, JetBlue Airways and other international corporations. Among those arrested were Russians and Ukrainians. This case of credit card fraud has caused companies worldwide losses of more than $ 300 million.

According to certain estimates, by installing malware on Nasdaq servers, hackers stole the data of 160 million card numbers, hid the traces of the crime by disabling anti-virus programs on infected computers, and also posted data on various hacker platforms. After that, they sold and used this information to make huge profits. It also turned out that the scammers had connections with the organization of Gonzalez.