Black Friday on November 29, and Cyber Monday on December 2 could store up a perfect storm of online refund fraud for the New Year, it’s claimed. As retailers are already discounting, criminal,s seeking fraudulent refunds may take advantage of generous extended return periods, warns Claims Detect Online, the new name for the Praesidio service from National Business Crime Solution. NBCS is offering its forensic tool, which allows retailers to share data and profile serial claimants.
Claims Detect Online says it’s widening its search by including a reduced cost – £2,000 – to attract smaller retailers and complement the transaction data already provided by NBCS’s larger brands.
Simran Baghara, pictured, fraud and legal services manager for Claims Detect Online, said: “As we get set for the festive period, retailers are hoping for improved sales, but holding their breath about what losses they could see in the new Year as a result of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas.
“By sharing this data anonymously through our contributors, we can identify trends of genuine customers compared to those dishonest claimants taking advantage of the Christmas rush and the general melee of the festive period. This enables fraud teams to interrogate the data and challenge persistent offenders while enhancing the experience for the genuine customers.”
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Malicious attackers are using online retail websites as a hotbed to exploit customer data, says Edward Roberts, Director of Product Marketing at cyber product company Imperva.
“This Black Friday, retailers need to take action to protect both their websites and their customers. With Brits now spending more money on their mobile phones than in every shopping centre in Britain combined, more needs to be done to ensure personal information is protected.
“Unique to e-commerce is gift card fraud. Scammers use bots to test millions of combinations of gift card numbers on retail websites. Once the gift card number is validated as having a balance, that number can be used to buy goods and the balance stolen. Both account takeover and gift card abuse shakes the confidence of the customer so much that many will no longer use the e-commerce site.”
Stuart Reed, VP of Cyber Security at, advises that keeping employees educated on how to respond to the likes of a potential phishing attack, particularly when many of these workers may be temporary staff, is fundamental. Retail has some way to go in terms of cyber resilience, he says. “It’s also important to have technology and processes in place that have broad visibility of the network, to identify and eliminate potentially malicious incidents quickly. For many retailers it will also be important to ensure their supply chain has a similar level of security precautions and any brand adjacencies are monitored to ensure fraudulent websites haven’t been set up to siphon customer information.”
Consumers meanwhile should ensure their information is safe during the holiday shopping. Online marketplaces are common hunting grounds for cyber criminals to create fake “identities” or accounts to sell non-existent goods and services to consumers doing their shopping or booking services, says Sanjay Gupta, VP and GM of Corporate Development, at the digital identity verification product company Mitek.
He says: “Consumers should be extra vigilant when scoping out the best deals and discounts, and limit their shopping to reputable sites they can trust. The good news is that most consumers are already more cautious when it comes to online interactions and aren’t afraid to take extra precautions when shopping online. In fact, 85pc of consumers are more likely to interact with websites that have a ‘seal of approval’, indicating that they verified the identity of all users versus sites that do not.
“This holiday season, consumers can protect themselves by checking to see if they are purchasing from a reputable site, and take the extra step of typing the URL directly to visit a site rather than clicking through pop-up ads and emails. If they’re on a marketplace site, it’s also important to check that sellers are verified. Importantly, refraining from handing over any personal or financial info for a transaction while on a public network, like at a café, and waiting until they are on a secure private network will dramatically reduce any risks of theft.
“These are small steps and might be slightly less convenient, but they will save more time and headaches in the long run. And these tips don’t just apply to consumers – businesses that take extra steps to protect their customers will see more web traffic and a higher return on investment when shoppers know they can be trusted.”
