Online fraud risk for etailers spreading beyond major cities

[mandy]

The five cities in the U.S. at greatest risk for online fraud—New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit—accounted for a lower percentage of it in 2005, compared to 2004, as criminals spread their activities to more places, according to the views of online merchants surveyed

Africa as a whole continues to be seen as having the highest risk of online fraud outside the U.S. and Canada, cited by 37% of respondents, followed by Asia, 30%, Nigeria, 31%, Europe, 18%; Latin America, 12%; China, 7%; Indonesia, 5%; and the Middle East, 2%.

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=17331

A related article from the same survey:

...the volume of e-commerce sales is driving a rising trend in dollars lost, with an estimated $2.8 billion lost to online fraud in 2005, up from $2.6 billion the previous year.

The report notes the percentage of revenues lost to fraud online was 1.8% in 2004 and actually slightly less, 1.6%, in 2005.

Online merchants with annual revenues of less than $5 million continue to experience higher rates of fraud, though CyberSource reports that their rate of fraud loss declined slightly during 2005

...Surveyed merchants reported a rate of fraud associated with international orders twice as high as the overall average

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=17333