Average Number of Suspected Digital Shopping Fraud Attempts During Start of Festive Shopping Season in Namibia Up 19.5% Compared to Rest of 2023
TransUnion analyses early holiday e-commerce fraud attempts
TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) released new findings today highlighting e-commerce fraud that occurred during the start of the 2023 holiday shopping season, from the Thursday before Black Friday to Cyber Monday. Based on proprietary insights from TransUnion’s global device risk consortium, the average number of suspected digital fraud attempts on any given day during that holiday period where the consumer was located in Namibia during the transaction, was 87.5% higher than the same period in 2022. It was 19.5% higher than the rest of 2023 (1 January to 22 November). Where the consumer transacted from Namibia, 3.1% of e-commerce transactions during that period were suspected to be fraudulent compared to 2.8% the rest of the year.
Globally, the analysis found 3.6% of all e-commerce transactions over the Black Friday period (23 – 27 November 2023) were suspected to be fraudulent. TransUnion also determined that the average number of suspected digital fraud attempts on any given day during that period globally was 15% higher than the same period in 2022, yet 50% lower than during the rest of 2023. [1]
The Percentage of Suspected E-Commerce Fraud at the Beginning of the Festive Shopping Season, Compared to the Rest of the Year
| Country/Region | 23 – 27 November 2023 | All 2023, prior to 23 November | 24 – 28 November 2022 | All 2022 | 25 – 29 November 2021 | All 2021 |
| Namibia | 3.1% | 2.8% | 2.4% | 3.2% | 2.9% | 4.5% |
| Global* | 3.6% | 10.5% | 3.2% | 4.9% | 3.1% | 5.6% |
* Includes 11 November for Hong Kong
“Just as the holiday season drives consumers online to begin shopping for gifts for their loved ones, so does it become a destination for fraudsters seeking to take advantage of this time for their financial gain,” said Steve Yin, global head of fraud at TransUnion. “Online retailers must ensure that consumers shopping their sites for the best deals are at the same time protected from fraud in the most seamless and friction-right way possible.”
The study also revealed the suspected digital fraud rate for each day in the holiday shopping period for transactions where the consumer was in Namibia during the transaction, and globally. Unlike last year when Black Friday (25 November 2022) saw the highest suspected digital fraud rate of 4.7%, this rate was the highest on Thursday 23 November, at 5.6%.
The Suspected Digital Fraud Rate Varies for Each Day of the 2023 Holiday Shopping Weekend
| Day | Transactions in Namibia | Globally |
| Thursday, 23 November | 5.6% | 4.1% |
| Friday, 24 November (Black Friday) | 4.3% | 3.7% |
| Saturday, 25 November | 1.0% | 3.3% |
| Sunday, 26 November | 1.3% | 3.1% |
| Monday, 27 November (Cyber Monday) | 2.6% | 3.8% |
As part of this analysis, TransUnion also determined the top indicators of fraudulent e-commerce transactions during the holiday shopping season globally. This year, transactions per IP (triggered with an unusual volume of activity from a single Internet Protocol (IP) address to a customer’s site in a short time) and transactions per device (triggered with an unusual volume of activity from a single device to a customer’s site in a short time) were the leading indicators for potential fraud attempts.
“The upcoming holidays mark the biggest shopping season of the year for retailers, but equipping themselves with the proper tools to detect fraud at the first warning sign is a year-round priority,” said Lara Burger, country manager at TransUnion Namibia “A critical way to minimise fraudulent transactions while at the same time protecting legitimate ones involves implementing holistic fraud solutions that can verify customer identity and authenticity at the very beginning of a transaction, including both account creation and login.”
TransUnion came to its conclusions primarily based on intelligence from its identity and fraud product suite, TransUnion TruValidate™, which helps secure trust across channels and delivers efficient consumer experiences. The rate or percentage of suspected digital fraud attempts reflect interactions which TransUnion customers either denied in real time due to fraudulent indicators or determined to be fraudulent after a manual review process—compared to all transactions it assessed for fraud.
To find out how this data varies by select countries and more, TransUnion’s holiday fraud insights can be found here.
Consumers interested in obtaining their TransUnion credit report, credit score, and accessing additional credit planning tools can click here.
[1] For Hong Kong, all holiday analysis also includes Nov. 11
