Davao City—A New York-listed firm with expertise in providing insights into the global marketplace has ranked the Philippines as one of the countries that recorded a high incidence of digital logistics fraud even while the country grappled with Covid-19.
TransUnion said in a report that the Philippines suspected digital logistics fraud more than doubled even while the country was on lockdown to contain the spread of the infectious disease.
“TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) recently released its analysis of digital fraud trends in the Philippines. Its assessment found that the percentage of suspected online fraud originating from the Philippines more than doubled when comparing the periods January 1-March 10 and March 11-April 28,” the report read.
The number of fraud incidents has increased 119 percent in March to April. “This makes the Philippines the country with the 76th highest percentage of digital suspected fraud originating from it from March 11 to April 28. In comparison, TransUnion found the rate of suspected fraudulent online transactions rose 5 percent globally during the pandemic.”
It did not make a listing of top-ranked countries victimized by online fraud, but only a table of industries where fraudsters had a heyday in duping unsuspecting buyers.
The local telecommunications industry was hit with a whopping 3,139-percent increase in incidents during the quarantine period. Globally, the industry saw a 76-percent hike in fraudulent transactions.
This may be attributed to the shift in information gathering and dissemination to the online platform as governments discourage their population to prevent mass gathering.
“Given the billions of people globally that have been forced to stay at home, industries have been disrupted in a way not seen on this massive of a scale for generations,” said Pia Arellano, president and CEO of TransUnion Philippines.
The company said that its assessment analyzed fraud trends to reflect the changing economic environment with Covid-19. It used March 11, the date when the WHO declared the coronavirus a global pandemic, as the base date for analysis.
“TransUnion analyzed the billions of online transactions its flagship fraud and identity solution, IDVision with iovation, assessed for fraud indicators on more than 40,000 websites and apps globally. It identified more than 100 million suspected fraudulent digital transactions worldwide from March 11-April 28,” it said. It examined the impact of digital fraud on industries. Aside from telecommunications and financial services in the Philippines, it also looked into the impact on communities, public sector, insurance, logistics, gambling, gaming, e-commerce, travel and leisure, and health care.
While all the rest of the industries noted a decline in fraud attempts outside of telecommunications and financial services, the Philippines did suffer an increase in incidents in the communities (18 percent) and a steady number in the public sector and insurance.
“TransUnion’s data show that as social distancing changes shopping patterns, fraudsters have taken notice and targeted the more digital forward industries while following the money globally,” the report read.
Telecommunications, e-commerce and financial services all have large digital adoption, financial information and payments at the center of their online experience, it said “and thus digital fraudsters targeted them more compared to other industries during the pandemic worldwide”.
“Globally, in 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 report read.
The types of online fraud from the industry with the second highest rate of suspected digital fraud growth from the Philippines, in financial services, were identity theft and account takeover/hijacking globally. This may account for the increasing number of complaints of users of social media sites, such as Facebook, that their accounts have been cloned.
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