Online fraud originating from the Philippines more than doubled during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, according to the latest report of information solution provider, TransUnion.
TransUnion’s analysis also detected the Philippines as the country with the highest rate of suspected online fraud originating from it targeting the logistics industry during the pandemic.
The overwhelming type of digital fraud in logistics TransUnion sees is shipping fraud wherein criminals typically take over a customer’s account but don’t change the shipping address in order to avoid detection.
Once the package has shipped, they intercept it at the carrier website and change the shipping address.
TransUnion said its assessment found the percentage of suspected online fraud originating from the Philippines more than doubled when comparing the periods Jan. 1, 2020 to March 10, 2020 and March 11 to April 28, increasing 119 percent.
This makes the Philippines the country with the 76th highest percentage of digital suspected fraud originating from it from March 11 to April 28, 2020.
In comparison, TransUnion found the rate of suspected fraudulent online transactions rose 5 percent globally during the pandemic.
TransUnion analyzed fraud trends to reflect the changing economic environment with COVID-19. It used March 11, 2020 — the date the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus (COVID-19) a global pandemic — as a base date
for analysis.
TransUnion’s data shows that as social distancing changes shopping patterns, fraudsters have taken notice and targeted the more digital forward industries while following the money globally. Telecommunications, e-commerce and financial services all have large digital adoption, financial information and payments at the center of their online experience, and thus digital fraudsters targeted them more compared to other industries during the pandemic worldwide.
Globally post-pandemic, the most common types of online fraud in telecommunications–the industry with the highest percentage of suspected digital fraud growth from the Philippines–are credit card fraud and account takeover/hijacking. The types of online fraud from the industry with the second highest rate of suspected digital fraud growth from the Philippines–financial services–are identity theft and account takeover/hijacking globally.