Spokesperson: Karolina Zareba, Head of Payments and Fraud Prevention at G2A.COM
In 2024 alone, over £571 million has been stolen through fraudulent payments during online transactions in the UK. Despite constant advancements in technology and education on fraud prevention, fraud is becoming sophisticated and harder to detect. This has raised a critical question in recent years for many organisations: how can they stay ahead of their customers falling victim to these scams?
Popular methods of fraud
Over the years, cybercriminals have changed how they conduct their attacks online, targeting vulnerable victims. Therefore, it is important to understand how fraudulent payment attempts happen and how it can be spotted beforehand.
A popular method at the moment is social media fraud. These scams happen on social media platforms with the cybercriminal pretending to be a loved one contacting the victim through the platform, requesting money, or sending links that lead to malicious websites. They can incorporate social engineering tactics to trick the victims into giving their personal sensitive information such as social media account log-in so money can be stolen.
A sophisticated method, that follows the technological advancement trends, is cybercriminals using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create deepfakes of victim’s loved ones or someone they know. The victim falls into the trap, thinking they’re communicating with a family member because of the advanced technology used to create this scam.
Another popular method that remains a leading method for fraud is phishing emails. Predominantly taking place in a workplace setting, scammers will pose as top-level executives and email employees asking them to help with a task that involves money. An estimate 3.4 million phishing emails a day are sent and 36% of all data breaches take place because of phishing.
Building a strong defense
Despite the rapid increase in fraud in online payments, organisations can set up procedures to help defend against these attacks.
G2A.COM, the world’s largest digital online marketplace with digital entertainment offerings, has created a foolproof method in order to prevent fraud from occurring on its platform. Using sophisticated tools based on AI, it has dedicated tools to block fake traffic such as bots from accessing the website.
Other methods include double-checking its users data and if any patterns seem to be out of order or a suspicion is raised, G2A will contact the customer to confirm everything is okay. Despite technology becoming useful and important in tackling these complicated scam attempts, G2A adds a human touch to its customer services, so vulnerable users have a human to talk to no matter what the situation may be.
Conscious users
Utilising important internet safety methods will change users’ experiences when they’re purchasing a product online, helping them be more conscious. Discussing past experiences and how people have individually been affected will help other people become more aware of the warning signs that fraud is about to occur.
Spreading information and educating people is the first step in reducing sky rocketing numbers of scams. Organisations could make a conscious effort to educate their employees, running workshops on fraud prevention and small steps all employees can take to not fall prey to phishing attacks.
Two-factor authentication for payment methods is a useful tool to ensure users are not becoming victims of online fraud. It is a method for them to have confirmation and a second layer of protection and security.
Revolutionsing online payment experiences
Technological advancements have innovated over time and have revolutionised online payment to prevent fraud.
G2A.COM uses AI even for simple tasks on its platform, such as informing the team when there is a bot on the platform. To prevent such accidents, G2A has set up rigorous rules and added additional metrics so such accidents and bots cannot access the website. Organisations can leverage machine learning algorithms to quickly and accurately analyse large volumes of data, like the example above, to identify suspicious behaviour and patterns that may be fraudulent. Being able to decipher great amounts of data quickly is effective and a game changer for organisations trying to help its customers.
Another way AI can revolutionise online payments is behavioural analysis. AI technology is able to analyse user behaviours overtime to flag any report of unusual activity. If a user is to suddenly begin making large, unusual purchases outside their usual habits, AI will flag these as suspicious so organisations can investigate.
Online payments are also revolutionising with multiple methods now available in order to pay for a service or product online. Users are no longer required to only use their bank details to complete a purchase, but safe and secure platforms like PayPal, Apple Pay, Venmo and more, can be plugged into checkout processes.
G2A.COM believes that offering a wide range of payment methods is effective, giving users a chance to make their choice on the platform. According to PayPal, 75% of users are likely to abandon their shopping cart if they find out their preferred payment method is not available.
Overall, there is still work to be done by individuals and organisations to promise safe payments online and stop more people from falling into advanced fraud attempts. Education and technological advancements, with the utilisation of AI, can be the first step in revolutionsing online payments and reducing skyrocketing numbers of fraud.
