Fraudsters shift focus to travel, logistics, online dating as economic activity restarts: Report

MUMBAI: With the restart of economic activity, fraudsters have shifted their focus to target unsuspecting people from travel and leisure, communities (online forums) and logistics sectors, a report said on Monday.

Digital fraud attempts from India grew 269 per cent in the travel and leisure segment, 267 per cent in communities which also includes online dating and 94 per cent in logistics over the same in the year-ago period, the report by credit information company Transunion said.

Transunion monitors digital fraud attempts after analysing data from over 40,000 websites and apps contained in its fraud analytics offering to come up with the trends.

"This quarter (April-June), as countries began to open up more from their COVID-19 lockdowns and travel and other leisure activities became more mainstream, fraudsters clearly made this industry a top target," its senior vice president Shai Cohen at the global fraud solutions unit said.

The pandemic accelerated community (i.e. online dating) and online retail transactions which require logistics, and fraudsters have recognized this, Cohen said.

"In India post the unlocks, travel and leisure has increasingly become a target as the industry recovers and fraudsters are looking to capitalise as more transactions return to this industry,” Cohen said.

The top type of fraud in the travel and leisure segment pertains to credit cards while under the communities head which also includes dating, it is profile misrepresentation that is used the most, the report said, adding it is shipping fraud in the logistics sector which is a favourite with the fraudsters.

Some industries also saw a decline in fraud attempts, the study said, pointing to cases such as telecommunication (down 96 per cent), retail (down 24.88 per cent) and gambling (down 31.53 per cent).