In Brazil, e-commerce is already part of citizens' daily lives, being one of the favorite ways to shop. Just to have a basis, recent data from the BigDataCorp survey shows that the number of sites dedicated to online purchases has increased by more than 45% since 2014, totaling 20 million pages. Furthermore, a survey by the Brazilian Association of Electronic Commerce (ABComm) indicates that the total sales of the segment reached over R$ 44 million in the first quarter of this year.
However, as in any successful sector, attention is necessary. This is because criminals take advantage of this popularity to try to deceive both companies and consumers, thereby making easy money. Data from Juniper Research confirms that by 2027, losses from online payment fraud could reach up to $343 billion globally. Regarding Brazil, a study by ClearSale indicated that in the past year, the value of scam attempts reached R$ 3.5 billion.
Although consumers are also harmed by fraud, the retailer is usually the one who takes the fall, since in most cases they are the ones who end up without the product and still have to perform cashback for customers who were victims on their platform. In this way, at the informational level, below are the four most common scams in e-commerce and how companies can prevent them.
car fraud
In this type of scam, the criminal makes a purchase normally through the e-commerce platform. However, after the product's arrival, he files a complaint claiming that the merchandise was not delivered. Thus, it receives a refund from the retailer even having the item in hand, causing double loss to the online store.
Identity theft
Using stolen information such as credit card numbers and CPF, scammers make various purchases on the online store, often exceeding the poor victim's bank limit. When the scam is discovered, the problem becomes the retailer's, who not only loses the merchandise but also has to reimburse the consumer whose information was used without authorization.
Interception strike
Using a stolen card, the criminals make a purchase on the e-commerce and register the victim's address. However, once the order has been completed, the criminals contact the e-commerce platform and claim to have "mistaken the location," requesting the delivery to be made to another address.
Card Test
In possession of a stolen card, the criminals start by making small purchases to check if the e-commerce's anti-fraud system detects them. If they go unnoticed, they start making increasingly larger acquisitions, leaving a financial hole for the victim.
To prevent these types of scams, a technology has proven to be very effective: Artificial Intelligence. Data from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) indicate that, worldwide, 18% of professionals in the fraud prevention sector already use AI and Machine Learning in their work. Furthermore, a study by Nvidia showed that 78% of professionals in the financial sectors have also used AI to address challenges related to fraud.
This happens because, by using AI combined with data analysis, it is possible to identify individuals more prone to fraudulent actions, as the technology performs a comprehensive analysis of all that person's virtual traces, including online behavior. In this way, it is possible to obtain a true understanding of your intentions and attitudes in the virtual environment.
Furthermore, with Machine Learning, which is automated machine learning, the e-commerce players' system will recognize the patterns of the most common scams. With this, automatically, the technology differentiates a legitimate transaction from a fraudulent one thanks to specifications that only this solution can detect, as scammers are increasingly informed and creative in their endeavors, making them immune to traditional methods.
