Frauds on an international level
According to GASA (Global Anti-Scam Alliance & ScamAdviser, Global State of Scams report), in 2022 more than 1 trillion US dollars were defrauded from the world’s citizens. Data from Revolut shows that this phenomenon has continued to grow over the past year, while the scam industry has undergone significant changes. Fraud techniques aimed at obtaining sensitive account data and personal information for financial gain have become increasingly common.
Financial criminals work with greater effort and more sophisticated techniques, using more psychological manipulation tools in addition to deceptive websites and extended payment chains. The company notes that its self-developed machine learning and artificial intelligence fraud detection system has prevented more than £475 million worth of fraud.
Fraud and payment trends will also be discussed at Portfolio’s Financial IT conference on June 11. Registration and details here!
The report basically mentions two types of fraud: so-called “unauthorized” fraud, where criminals hack into an account even though the victim has not authorized access, and “authorized” fraud, i.e. scams, where fraudsters use deceptive techniques they get the victim to authorize the payment.
According to the report, psychological manipulation remains a significant driver of both types of fraud, but has a greater impact on authorized fraud. Although 62% of Revolut’s victims
In 2023, they were defrauded by unauthorized fraud, the average loss per victim was HUF 50,470, compared to an average loss of HUF 642,360/person in the case of authorized fraud.
No cheats allowed
-
Card fraud: in 98% of cases it is card fraud, for which they use common tactics such as phishing. To counter these strategies, Revolut and several other banks offer single-use virtual cards.
-
Thefts: although theft affects only 1% of victims, it accounted for 39% of unauthorized fraud for Revolut customers in 2023. Today, fraudsters operate in well-organized criminal networks and are able to track who is doing what on their phone and capture passwords using various surveillance techniques. To avoid this risk, it is important to always be careful when entering the PIN code and not store your login data on the phone.
Licensed Frauds
-
Employment scams: their number increased more than 12 times in 2023, they usually tried to ensnare young job seekers.
-
Investment scams: the number of cases is 142% higher than that registered last year. In these types of scams, victims are usually offered bitcoins or other investment options. The anonymity characteristic of the crypto world has also attracted many scammers who promise higher guaranteed returns for crypto investments.
-
Purchase scams: this category remained the most popular in all countries, accounting for 63% of reported fraud in 2023, but representing only 15% of the total amount lost.
Cover image source: Getty Images
