Visa report shows top scams impacting consumers and businesses globally

The report points to increasingly organised, sophisticated threat actors targeting the most vulnerable point in the payments’ ecosystem: humans.

“With the use of Generative AI and other emerging technologies, scams are more convincing than ever, leading to unprecedented losses for consumers,” said Paul Fabara, chief risk and client services officer of Visa. “Visa is uniquely positioned to address these threats, with investments in tech and innovation reaching over $10 billion over the past five years. These investments, in addition to our ongoing education and top talent, allow us to stay ahead of scams and protect consumers.”

Dung Dang, Visa country manager of Vietnam and Laos, recently spoke about safety and security at the annual “Cashless Day” event organised by the State Bank of Vietnam and Tuoi Tre newspaper. She said, “At Visa, we prioritise consumer-focused innovation. Recognising Vietnamese businesses' emphasis on payment risk management, we are committed to delivering secure and seamless payment solutions, while our proactive risk detection solutions underpin transaction safety. The adoption of Visa Token Service (VTS) boosted Asia Pacific's digital economy by over $2 billion in 2023. Network tokens, meeting expectations for secure, seamless payments, have allowed merchants to reduce fraud rates, focus on product innovation and enhance customer engagement.”

Consumers are increasingly targeted by scammers, who rely on heightened emotions to create fraud opportunities. While the number of individual scam reports from June to December decreased, the total money lost increased, indicating scammers are targeting victims with more effective – and costly – scams. According to another recent Visa survey, more than one-third of adults surveyed decided not to report scams committed against them, suggesting the losses are higher than reported.

Top consumer scams highlighted in the Spring Threats report include “pig butchering” scams, inheritance scams, humanitarian relief scams, and triangulation fraud.

One of the top consumer scams highlighted in the Spring Threats report is "pig butchering” scams. Capitalising on holidays like Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve through social media and dating sites, scammers lure victims into online relationships and convince them to invest in fake cryptocurrency trading platforms. Leveraging AI to create more convincing campaigns, pig butchering scams have led to billions of dollars of losses for consumers. Per Visa’s study, 10 per cent of surveyed adults have been targeted in a pig butchering scam.

Regarding inheritance scams, victims are notified about an inheritance left by a long-lost relative, often coming from a seemingly legitimate law firm or other professional entity. Red flags include secrecy, urgency, requests for personal information, and the need for an initial payment to secure future gains. 15 per cent of US adults surveyed by Visa have been targeted in inheritance scams.

Another top consumer scam regards humanitarian relief. Capitalising on tragic current events, these scams exploit calls for donations across social media to defraud unsuspecting donors.

When it comes to triangulation fraud, threat actors create illegitimate online shopfronts offering in-demand products at a low cost to collect payment information. Legitimate merchants fulfill the online order, but payment information is already compromised. Triangulation scams cost merchants up to $1 billion in a single month.

“Visa has a dedicated team that works around the clock globally to monitor and disrupt the tactics bad actors use to commit fraud,” said Fabara. “With our average time between identifying and shutting down an attack measured in minutes versus hours or days, we are doing all we can to help keep consumers safe. We hope building awareness of these emerging scams will help consumers fight fraud as another line of defence in the battle against fraudsters.”

In addition to cardholders, threat actors are continually probing organisations and networks for complex weaknesses, leveraging new technologies to exploit vulnerabilities with far-reaching impacts.

There are some organisational fraud trends impacting the ecosystem. First, supply chains and third-party services are increasingly targeted with campaigns designed to maximise the impact of a single breach. Second, AI has been increasingly adopted by fraudsters, allowing them to identify vulnerabilities within fraud controls implemented by banks. Third, Purchase Return Authorization (PRA) fraud attacks increased 83 per cent over the previous five-month period, with each successful attack leading to approximately $115,000 in potential fraud losses to banks. Finally, ransomware cases increased 300 per cent from June to December 2023 when compared to the same period in 2022. Visa forecasts that ransomware threat actors will continue to target critical infrastructure, including financial organisations.

Through the close integration of people and technologies, Visa has developed processes to mitigate and prevent payments ecosystem attacks. Visa engages with all payment ecosystem participants to ensure any at-risk data is identified and impacted stakeholders are notified.

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