IMGCAP(1)]
Online merchants in the United States and Canada will lose $4 billion in fraud this year, suggest the results of a survey online-payment and security company CyberSource Corp. released today. That figure is an 8.1% increase compared with the 2007 fraud loss of $3.7 billion, but the rate of fraud held steady at 1.4% of revenue, the same rate since 2006, Doug Schwegman, CyberSource director of market and customer intelligence, tells CardLine. "Most merchants are selling more this year," even though e-commerce sales growth is slowing, Schwegman says. ComScore Inc., a Reston, Va.-based Internet research firm, says e-commerce merchants have experienced single-digit growth in recent months versus double-digit growth earlier this year. The fraud rate is holding steady, in part, because more merchants are using sophisticated fraud-detection tools, such as address-verification services and contacting the customer, CyberSource says. As a result, they are accepting a higher percentage of orders, Schwegman says. "Merchants are looking for every dollar they can find," he says. Mountain View, Calif.-based CyberSource conducted the survey of 400 merchants in October and November.
