As the number of online shops and online sales volumes have grown exponentially since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, fraudsters have also become more active. There has been a significant increase in friendly e-commerce fraud, phishing activities and identity theft.
Therefore, merchants should be very cautious and monitor orders carefully. Just by tracking customers’ behaviour, you will be able to notice any inconsistencies in their data or suspicious activity. There are many signs of fraudulent activity; here are a few scenarios you should be aware of to spot of e-commerce fraud:
Pay special attention to customers who purchase in your e-shop for the first time. Thoroughly check the information they provide during registration, including the name, phone number and address. Did the customer provide a real name and surname? Is the shipping address real, and does it coincide with the billing address? Are there any suspicious quantities of products in their order? If the provided information looks fake or suspicious, conduct further authentication steps to verify their identity.
Make sure that the email address provided by a customer exists. Fraudsters usually use a fake email address. You can use Google to check whether the email can be found online. If the email address looks suspicious, try to contact the customer before shipping the products to the indicated address.
Fraudsters tend to fill in their addresses in the shipping field and the address of the legitimate cardholder in the billing field. Check the countries which are indicated in the billing and shipping addresses. Pay special attention to the order made for a foreign shipping address if most of your customers are located in your country. Note that in order to stay anonymous, fraudsters usually use postal boxes for their orders.
Pay special attention to a purchase made at night. Check the time zone of the country that the order came from. Fraudsters tend to operate when merchants are less likely to notice any suspicious payments.
An unusually high order amount can be a sign of fraudulent activity. Similarly, a very small order should attract your attention if it is followed by a sequence of large orders. It's also worth paying attention to a customer who makes purchases often.
Check all the transactions which were made with the same payment card but for different shipping addresses. You should also be very cautious with orders made with different payment cards but for the same address. Check the transactions conducted with different cards for the same IP address.
Do not disregard any indication of suspicious behaviour of your customers. You should be alert and quick to act in case of any fraudulent activity. If you need any assistance with your payments, feel free to contact us or check out what fraud tools you could gain by processing with us. For more information on keeping your business safe, why not take a look at our blog on how to secure your website from payment fraud.