Monica Eaton Offers Insight on BEC & Gift Card Abuse for PaymentsSource
Opportunities for record profits lie ahead as the holidays draw closer. However, new fraud tactics threaten to steal merchants’ profits, as Chargebacks911® COO Monica Eaton reveals in her latest column for PaymentsSource.
PaymentsSource offers independent and authoritative analysis for every segment of the payments industry. As such, they’re one of the most trusted perspectives for news and information about new developments in the space. Monica is a regular contributor to their PayThink section, which invites payments professionals and thought leaders to share their insight.
Business email compromise, or BEC, is a serious risk for businesses of all types. This involves a fraudster taking over an email account by impersonating the authorized user. The fraudster can then manipulate different parties, including consumers, into going along with their fraud schemes. The criminals then cash-out their scams using gift cards.
“It’s no secret that gift cards are a favored target for fraudsters,” Monica says. “Gift cards have the same value as cash but are anonymous and digitally transferrable. Plus, more than half of consumers say they’re interested in buying or receiving gift cards, making them easy to resell and convert to liquid cash.”
A BEC scheme is behind nearly two-thirds of all gift card fraud incidents. That’s why businesses need to take the lead in mitigating this threat.
