Samport

This year's Christmas shopping surged in the United Kingdom as sales peaked at £2000 per minute on December 27th. Online shopping has also grown with an estimated £440 million spent through retail websites on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and the 27th. This represents an increase of 41 % on last year. In Sweden, similar estimates conclude that online shopping increased with staggering 37 per cent compared to last year. As online shopping is increasing payment card fraud becomes a critical problem to solve. Samport presents new fraud statistics and identifies geographical risk areas in Sweden.

The increase in shopping has been accompanied by £17 million of fraudulent activity in the UK during these three days. An estimated 8,500 individuals or cells of fraudsters attempted to use stolen or cloned credit cards online every day. According to The Times the £17 millions of attempted fraud represented about 4 per cent of online retail activity. All but £1.9 million of these fraudulent activities were detected and blocked. These alarming figures show that some 11 per cent of card frauds actually succeeded in the UK regardless of anti fraud systems.

Samport Payment Services AB statistics for the Swedish Christmas shopping reveal similar figures. Samport's anti fraud system Samport ZEUS classified more than 5 per cent of all transactions online as fraudulent attempts. Watches, mobile phones, digital cameras and PC games and game consoles are the most sought after items for the fraudsters. It is assumed that the fraudsters take advantage of the increased shopping around Christmas to blend in among legitimate shoppers. Many retailers still lack anti fraud systems and are especially vulnerable if targeted.

Several retailers have learned that many of these active fraudsters are active in Malmö, in Southern Sweden. Under the period December 15th to December 27th almost one quarter of all fraud originated from Malmö, making it the top most risky city in Sweden. One retailer in the computer hardware industry said that his company have stopped to ship to certain areas of the city. "It is simply too risky" concludes the security manager of the company

- The fraud risk is significantly higher in the Rosengård district in Malmö says Fredrik Rehnvall, Fraud and Risk Manager at Samport. We have also detected isolated fraud cells in the Södra Sofielund and Östra Skrävlinge. However, we have fine-tuned our anti fraud system Samport ZEUS accordingly, making it very difficult to beat.

For more information, please contact Fredrik Rehnvall, Fraud & Risk Manager Samport at fredrik.rehnvall@samport.com or at +46 35 24 10 409.

Monday the 14th of January, Samport was on Swedish TV. Please click here>>