Online Fraudsters Prefer These 7 Things

Online fraudsters are clever but their patterns of fraud are predictable and can be spotted easily if you know what to look for.   Feedzai, an innovative machine learning company,  does just that mining predictable online patterns of fraudsters that might not be visible to the naked eye.

In a great report, you can find here.  Feedzai outlines 7 patterns that fraudsters follow online – 7 Trends in Online Fraud.

Here are the Top 7 Preferences of Fraudsters Online. These are all analysis done by Feedzai.

#1 Fraudsters Prefer to Move Fast. They are Impatient.

When a new account is created, Feedzai has found that most fraud occurs within 100 hours of the account opening.  This follows closely what we have found with credit card fraud for many years.

#2 Fraudsters Prefer to Use Newly Booted Devices

Newly booted devices represent a significantly higher risk to merchants.  That is because fraud on devices that were booted the same day as when the transaction occurred is almost 5 times as high as the fraud on devices booted a week ago.

#3 Fraudsters Prefer to Use Consecutive Digits in their Emails

When you create something fraudulent you cannot make it random.  And that is why fraudsters tend to use 2-4 consecutive digits in their email addresses.  When they do, the fraud rate is nearly twice as high as when they use no consecutive digits.

#4 Fraudsters Prefer Not to Name Their Devices

Fraudsters use their devices for fraudulent purposes so they have no interest in taking the time to name the devices.  This becomes another clue to their behavior online.

#5 Fraudsters Prefer Not To Move Their Fingers Much

Fraudsters are lazy.  They don’t like to move their fingers much when they are creating their fraudulent email addresses.  This explains why the fraud rate is so high when email addresses use consecutive characters on the keyboard. I guess you could call this the qwerty99 fraud email trend.

#6 Fraudsters Prefer to Keep Very Charged Batteries

Fraud rates on fully charged batteries are 15 times higher than fraud on devices that have 10% battery life left.  Fraudsters love to keep their batteries charged so they can keep raking in the dough.

#7 – Fraudsters Prefer Using Certain Email Domains Over Others

Fraudsters love to use certain domains more than others.  These are the top domains by fraud rates.