With the impending stresses of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and other holiday shopping activities on the horizon, it is easy to forget to consider that fraudsters will soon be celebrating too. As you fill your online cart and swipe your card at brick and mortars, fraudsters will be following behind you – waiting for their chance to jump in.
Over the past few years fraud rates in call centers have skyrocketed, and we reached another peak this past year. The 2018 fraud rate is 1 in 685, remaining at the top of a five-year peak, and we will likely see this peaking trend continue for years to come as fraudsters make fewer attempts but exploit companies for bigger losses as fraud becomes more effective over time.
There is an estimated 90 voice channel attacks every minute in the U.S., and by industry, the number of fraudulent calls varies. For retail, 1 in every 325 calls is fraudulent, and with an explosion of omnichannel payment options, fraudsters exploit retail call centers to take over accounts with information accessed from past data breaches and dark web research. Peer to peer apps such as PayPal, WhatsApp, Zelle, Apple Pay, and Venmo are also exploited as part of a call center attack.
So as your shopping list becomes more and more daunting, it’s important to remember the factors that are feeding into the fraud increase:
- Repercussions from data breaches
- Consumers not following security best practices
- Fraudsters getting smarter and working less for more payoff
For more information, download our full Voice Intelligence Report.
