The state of the global economy has placed companies and consumers squarely in the crosshairs of fraud. While downturn-driven layoffs continue to put hundreds of thousands of people out of work, ballooning inflation inspired an early hunt for holiday deals and discounts in 2022.
Resource-strapped businesses focused on generating sales were happy to oblige with Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) deals that started in mid-October. But for fraudsters, this year’s disruption proved a valuable, and profitable, opportunity. Account takeover (ATO) ballooned by 94% in November, creating an even riskier environment for businesses as seasonal shopping picked up.
Fraudsters respond to recession with large-scale ATO
Bargain-hunting throughout the year fueled a pre-seasonal increase in transaction volumes and values, and fraudsters took notice. In the first half of 2022, account takeover (ATO) jumped 131% YoY across industries. Simultaneously, consumers reported painfully frequent encounters with ATO: 44% of reported victims said they’d had their accounts hacked up to five times.
The trickle-down impact of this increased fraud was widespread, with a common outcome being higher dispute rates worth more money per dispute. In Q3 2022, dispute rates rose 35% from Q1 2022, with average values up 16% YoY and hovering around $193 per chargeback. The uptick in disputes filed makes sense, with recent reports showing that the top outcomes of ATO are fraudulent credit card transactions and funds being drained from person-to-person (P2P) accounts.
Earlier this year, 34% and 31% of consumers, respectively, named financial services and digital goods & services as the riskiest industries, and our data validates the suspicion. The extended BFCM 2022 period—surrounding the official “weekend” of November 24th-28th—attracted a damaging, short-term burst of attempted abuse that unequally targeted the loyalty and crypto spaces. Digital goods and services were next on the list, along with retail and e-commerce marketplaces.
Dig deeper into Sift’s seasonal fraud data with our interactive infographic, below.