Online Retail Credit Card Fraud Jumps 20% During Holiday Shopping Weekend

PORTLAND, OR--(Marketwired - Nov 30, 2016) - iovation, the leading provider of device intelligence for authentication and fraud prevention, today released new data that shows card-not-present fraud -- fraudulent transactions where a credit card is not physically presented to a merchant -- increased significantly from Black Friday to Cyber Monday 2016 when compared to the same period in past years.

iovation research shows a 20 percent increase in online retail credit card fraud during the 2016 holiday shopping weekend when compared to the same period in 2015, and a 34 percent increase in online credit card fraud from Black Friday to Cyber Monday 2014 to 2016. In addition, iovation disclosed:

• The percent of all online retail fraudulent transactions from Black Friday to Cyber Monday that involved credit card fraud
  • 2016: 59 percent
  • 2015: 49 percent
  • 2014: 44 percent
• The percent of all online retail fraudulent transactions in 2014, 2015 and 2016 that involved credit card fraud
  • 2016: 59 percent
  • 2015: 42 percent
  • 2014: 50 percent
• The percent of online retail transactions from Black Friday to Cyber Monday that were fraudulent
  • 2016: 0.38 percent
  • 2015: 1.16 percent
  • 2014: 2.34 percent
• The percent of online retail transactions in 2014, 2015 and 2016 that were fraudulent
  • 2016: 1.13 percent
  • 2015: 2.89 percent
  • 2014: 2.53 percent

iovation attributes the rise in online credit card fraud to the recent shift from consumers using traditional credit and debit cards with magnetic strips to EMV (Europay, MasterCard, and Visa) chipped cards. While the new chip cards have proven to do a great job of stopping card-present fraud, it is now clear that fraudsters are turning online.

"The shift from in-person card fraud to card-not-present fraud shows that cybercriminals are quick to shift the focus of their scams," said iovation CTO Scott Waddell. "Much like EMV became a major weapon for in-person merchants, new authentication approaches will be the antidote to curb this new trend."

Based on past research iovation conducted, the company recently predicted the rise in card-not-present fraud over the holiday shopping weekend.

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