The Office for National Statistics has revealed that there were more than 5.8m incidents of cybercrime in the last year, with 3.8m of these incidents attributed to online shopping scams, virus attacks, theft of bank details and other online offences. The figure is much higher than an initial ONS estimate in October last year.
Gerry Carr, commercial direct at Ravelin, a UK fraud-detection company said:
“3.8M card fraud offences reflects the reality we are seeing with our customer base of online businesses. But the cost of this crime is being borne not so much by individuals, although there is huge inconvenience, but by online businesses up and down the country in the form of chargebacks. The only option for these merchants is to take all the precautions they can to ensure transactions are legitimate, while still making for a pleasant online shopping experience for its customers. It’s a tricky balance in a next day delivery and on-demand world and we can see that many are struggling to do so.”
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