La Jornada – Businesses turn down 1 in 4 online purchases

One in four e-commerce purchases made were rejected due to potential fraud, as revealed by a study by ClearSale, a company that specializes in corporate fraud prevention issues.

According to the company, Mexico is the second country in the world to reject most transactions due to potential fraud (the first being the United States), given that 26 percent of online purchases “do not pass”, and outperforms countries such as the United Kingdom by an average of 22 percent and Canada 19 in The cent, Australia 18 per cent.

According to the company, users who use video game consoles are the ones who experience the largest fraudulent purchases, at 40%. Followed by those who used a generic computer at 38 percent. Then those with a professional laptop account for 23 percent and finally those who have electronic tablets at 19 percent.

In an interview, ClearSale Latin America CEO Victor Islas explained that this kind of problem causes internet consumers to prefer not to make purchases again on pages where the transaction has been declined.

The problem is that companies often reject Internet users’ purchases due to potential fraud, and sometimes the reason is more often than not that the transactions are not fraudulent. This leads to them losing sales. “

According to the fraud prevention company, two-thirds of consumers have looked at corporate customer service centers, but five in 10 users prefer not to make a purchase again with the provider or online. It is estimated that just over 400 million pesos are left unprocessed annually.

Impersonation is common, illegal

The specialist explains that high-value purchases are those that have usually been canceled by companies. In this sense, he believes that it is necessary “for companies to choose to review the credit history of customers who carry out this type of operation so as not to reject potential legitimate sales.”

On the other hand, Islas says the biggest type of fraud noticed since last year, when the pandemic began and the first measures were taken to social confinement, is identity theft.

ClearSale notes that four out of 10 consumers have experienced some Internet fraud, while in physical commerce the proportion is three in 10.

In this sense, Bayonet, a company that specializes in fraud prevention, reports that in Mexico, 463 electronic frauds are committed every hour in e-commerce and online banking operations.

“The growth in internet sales due to confinement has resulted in more fraud attempts or information theft through electronic means, especially identity theft emails or phone calls, but also a higher rate of decline in payment attempts, which is very harmful to internet commerce,” Jose said. Andres Chavez, CEO of Bayonet.