US Retailers Losing $100billion to ID Fraud

A new study which has surveyed retailers and consumers in the USA has shown that ID fraud is costing retailers $100billion every year.  This figure does not include the loss of merchandise, which when factored in, results in retailers losing a massive $191 billion each year.

The study shows that ID fraud is more prevalent in certain sectors; for example digital goods merchants are seeing 54% of their total fraud losses attributed to ID fraud, where as for online gaming and social networking, the figure is as high as 67. The problem also appears to be worsening with 40% of ecommerce stores surveyed seeing an increase in the problem.

The study which was carried out by Javelin and Lexis Nexis, also highlights other fraud trends:

• One in five merchants has experienced an increase in unauthorised transactions, associated with ID fraud.
• Credit card crime has continued to rise, however alternative payment fraud is also becoming a growing problem with online and mobile payment fraud on the increase
• Friendly or First Party fraud accounted for one third of the total fraud reported for ecommerce merchants

The full report can be found online at: http://risk.lexisnexis.com/Article.aspx?id=58