Zurich, November 15, 2017

CRIF SA, in conjunction with the Swiss Association of mail order traders (Verband des Schweizerischen Versandhandels VSV), conducted another online survey in October 2017 of Swiss online and mail order retailers on the subject of fraud. More than 92 percent of the retailers contacted had already been affected at least once by fraud.

Increasing turnover - Increasing fraud attempts

E-commerce in Switzerland is continuing to grow strongly. According to the Swiss Association of mail order traders (VSV), online and mail order sales in Switzerland grew by 8.3% in 2016 alone, reaching 7.8 billion francs.

However, with growing volumes of turnover in e-commerce comes an increasing number of fraud attempts. This is also confirmed by the survey of Swiss online and mail order retailers carried out in October 2017 by CRIF SA in conjunction with the Swiss Association of mail order traders (VSV). More than 92% of the retailers contacted admitted to having been affected by fraud at least once. More than a quarter of survey participants believe that fraud has increased since 2016. Fifty percent of those interviewed maintain that fraud attempts have remained more or less unchanged compared to the previous year.

Types of fraud

Just like in the 2016 survey, the most common type of fraud is that carried out by people ordering goods and knowing from the start that they can't pay. The second most common type of fraud specified is by people who buy goods while providing false details, followed by people who order and then deny ever having received the goods. A growing number of fraud cases can also be identified in the area of identity and payment data fraud.

Losses incurred

In the survey, 75 percent of participants confirmed that the loss incurred was less that 1 percent of turnover, 7 percent of interviewees quoted a figure of around 1-2 percent of turnover, and for 4 percent, the loss amounted to more than 4 percent of turnover.

Measures

Over 95.6 percent of retailers interviewed confirmed that they adopted fraud recognition measures. This is 5 percent up on the 2016 survey. Around 80 percent of retailers manually check suspicious orders, 55 percent work with their own blacklists, and 20 percent use anti-fraud filters to counter fraud. The effort put in on a manual level by online retailers for fraud prevention is high and surprises even Daniel Gamma, the CRIF e-commerce manager: “Nowadays there are efficient Device Fingerprinting solutions available which enable the automatic recognition of offenders, relieving retailers from tiring manual work.”

For the retailers interviewed, the main challenges in the fight against fraud are the search for the right cost-benefit ratio, risk identification, and the development of risk and client-focused methods.

The complete study can be requested by writing to presse.ch@crif.com