Digital fraud attempts decline by 11% in Q2

MANILA, Philippines — Suspected digital fraud attempts originating from the Philippines declined by 11 percent in the second quarter of the year, driven by the gaming and financial services sectors, according to global information and insights company TransUnion.

Based on results of its latest quarterly fraud analysis, TransUnion said the drop in the rate of suspected digital fraud in the country was consistent with the decline in global digital fraud observed within the same timeframe.

TransUnion said the largest declines from Philippine-based transactions were seen in, gaming, which was down 53 percent, and financial services, 16 percent  lower.

Communities such as online dating sites and forums also posted a 14 percent decline in fraud attempts, retail (-14 percent), and travel and leisure posted a three percent decline.

Despite the overall decrease in suspected digital fraud coming from the Philippines across different industries, TransUnion emphasized that suspected fraudsters have honed in on specific sectors, such as the logistics sector, with the largest year-on-year growth in the second quarter at 236 percent.

It cited data from April 1 to June 30, which showed  that shipping fraud was the top logistics-focused form of digital fraud across the world.

“Common examples of this type of fraud include instances where buyers fabricate shipping addresses, or when sellers receive payment for goods or services, but never ship to buyers,”TransUnion said.

The  telecommunications industry posted  the second largest year-on-year increase in the rate of suspected digital fraud coming from the Philippines at 45 percent, while gambling placed third with a 32 percent uptick.

TransUnion said  digital fraud continues to be constant in the lives of many Filipino consumers, with 45 percent of Filipino adult respondents in
TransUnion’s latest Consumer Pulse Study reported being targeted by online fraud schemes but did not become a victim in the last three months.

However, 11 percent of the respondents said they ended up as victims of activities such as phishing, money scams, or third-party seller scams on legitimate online retail sites in the last three months.

“With more Filipinos choosing to transact online, fraudsters will continue to capitalize on any opportunities to exploit both consumers and businesses,” TransUnion Philippines president and CEO Pia Arellano said.

“As the Philippines continues its rapid acceleration into a digital economy, organizations must take decisive steps to stay ahead of any present and emerging form of fraudulent activity. By instituting strong fraud and authentication practices, and streamlining processes to reduce manual reviews and customer interrogations, organizations can reduce costs and increase revenue while building greater trust with the Filipino public,” she said.

TransUnion came to its conclusions about fraud against businesses based on intelligence from billions of transactions and more than 40,000 websites and apps contained in its flagship identity proofing, risk-based authentication and fraud analytics solution suite called TruValidate.

It said the percent or rate of suspected digital fraud attempts are those that TruValidate customers either denied or reviewed due to fraudulent indicators compared to all transactions that were assessed for fraud.