Four in five consumers are worried about identity theft or someone stealing their credit card numbers, according to a report this month from the credit monitoring agency Experian
The shift mirrors a surge in losses to fraudulent credit card transactions. Consumers lost $10 billion to fraud in 2023, a 14% increase from the previous year and the highest dollar amount the agency ever recorded.
Older respondents worried more about losing their credit card information to thieves and hackers, Experian’s survey found. Of respondents aged 55 to 69, 86% of them said they were concerned about someone stealing their credit card information, compared with 71% of respondents between the ages of 25 and 39.
Experian did not ask why consumers were afraid of bad actors stealing their credit card information, making the underlying reasons behind the increase difficult to ascertain.
However, high-profile data breaches involving credit card numbers have become a distressingly common headline in recent years. On Aug. 20, the Oregon Zoo said someone hacked its online ticketing system and compromised the credit card accounts of 100,000 visitors and American Express acknowledged that credit card information was stolen in a data breach in March.
Meanwhile, an emerging technology, generative AI — which can write short prompts and mimic human speech — is keeping business owners up at night.
The rise in worry over AI fraud shows that bad actors are evolving in their tactics, even as more time and effort is dedicated to stopping them, Peters said.
“The fraud landscape is swiftly changing,” Kathleen Peters, Experian’s chief innovation officer for North America, said in an email. “The emergence of generative AI alone has created new opportunities for fraudsters to create sophisticated schemes at scale. With technologies, and fraud schemes, developing rapidly all the time, it can be difficult for businesses to home in on what they should be focusing on when it comes to their fraud prevention strategies.”
Experian did not ask about artificial intelligence in 2023.
The survey showed that business owners who want to retain customers must show their patrons they take the problem seriously, Peters said.
“Businesses should remain close to consumer preferences and continue to innovate in order to implement the latest technologies,” she said.
By Patrick Cooley on Aug 28, 2024
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