If You Were a Victim of Payment Fraud, Would You Know?

How long would it take you to realize you were the victim of payments fraud — an hour? A day? A week?

According to PYMNTS’ research, it took almost a quarter of consumers a week or more to realize they’d been the victim of payments fraud. Just 38% of consumers discovered these crimes on the day they happened.

Our findings also showed the number of consumers who reported being victims of payments fraud fell between November and December, from 7% to 5%.

Some consumers who became a victim of these frauds learned about the incidents within a week — 38% found out about an incident on the day it occurred, while the same percentage learned about it in less than a week.

However, it took 24% of payments fraud victims anywhere from eight days to more than a month to realize they’d been targeted.

Once consumers discover they’ve become the victim of payments fraud, the majority report it quickly: 43% reported on the same day, while 30% reported within two days to a week. Seventeen percent took eight to 30 days to report, and only 7% took longer than a month to report.

Fewer Consumers Made Mobile Purchases

Meanwhile, our research found that consumers went back to shopping in physical stores after the Thanksgiving holiday: 73% reported shopping in stores in December, vs. 71% in November.

This shift also coincided with a slight drop in online purchases made using mobile devices. Only 12% of consumers said they used mobile devices for shopping in December, compared to 14% in November. Meanwhile, 11% of consumers used desktops and other computers for shopping, up slightly from the month before.

One exception was in the travel sector. Forty-four percent of consumers who made travel-related purchases did so on a mobile device, spending a collective $5.2 billion — and a little more than a third of consumers used computers for those transactions.

If you’d like to learn more about our findings, be sure to download your copy of Digital Economy Payments: How U.S. Shoppers Paid During The Holiday Season.