MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Jan. 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- For the third consecutive year, eCommerce merchants named Nigeria as the world's riskiest country for online trade. New York City was chosen as the riskiest North American metro area for eCommerce, also for the third straight year. The finding came as part of an annual online fraud survey undertaken by CyberSource Corporation . By denoting a country or city as
"With the exception of Nigeria, which seems to own the risky category, what we are seeing is a spreading of the fraud risk both domestically and abroad," said Doug Schwegman, CyberSource director of customer and market intelligence. "Fraud is a mobile phenomenon, movable from one city or one country to the next. If perpetrators feel that their ship-to addresses are making them vulnerable, if merchants are denying orders to a particular zip code or region, fraudsters can arrange to have their products shipped to them through different intermediary locations. If this implies fraudsters are getting smarter, so are merchants. We have seen a big jump in the use of several anti-fraud tools this year, and first among those was geolocation."
Geolocation tools give merchants information on the geographic location of an internet-connected computer, mobile device, or website visitor based on the computer's internet protocol address. In 2005, 25% of U.S. merchants had access to IP Geolocation information. By the end of 2006, that number had jumped to 35%, according to CyberSource's 8th Annual Fraud Survey.
"Merchants tell us that their fraud risk has stayed relatively constant over the last three years," said Schwegman. This isn't due to any lessening of effort on the part of fraudsters. What's happening is that many merchants are buying new tools and services and are staying at the forefront of anti- fraud technology. Directing more resources to fight fraud can yield big benefits in keeping the criminals at bay."
Question/Survey details
The city and country questions were part of a larger survey, the Eighth Annual CyberSource Fraud Survey, commissioned by CyberSource Corporation and undertaken by Mindwave Research. The survey was fielded September 14 through October 6, 2006 and yielded 351 qualified and complete responses. The sample was drawn from a database of companies involved in electronic commerce activities. Incentive to respondents was a summary of the research findings.
About CyberSource
CyberSource Corporation
