Get ready for a surge in online travel fraud
Unsurprisingly, transactions for booking flights, hotels and rental cars increase significantly over the summer months. In addition, fraudulent activity against online travel companies goes up during the same period.
Iovation based these findings on its analysis of the hundreds of millions of online travel transactions and billions of total transactions that it screens for fraudulent indicators every year.
Summer transaction trends
Total transactions – The amount of online travel transactions during an average summer month in 2015 was eight percent higher than a typical month the rest of the year, 39 percent higher in 2014 and three percent higher in 2013.
Mobile usage – During the summer, travel transactions from mobile devices increased at a higher rate than transactions from non-mobile devices.
Travel transactions conducted from a mobile device during an average summer month in 2015 were 14 percent higher than a typical month the rest of the year, 40 percent higher in 2014 and 36 percent higher in 2013.
Travel fraud – The amount of fraudulent online travel transactions during an average summer month in 2015 was nine percent higher than a typical month the rest of the year, nine percent higher in 2014 and 23 percent higher in 2013.
Mobile fraud – More fraudulent travel transactions originating from a mobile device occurred during the summer months.
Much like legitimate mobile purchases, online travel fraud originating from a mobile device increased during the summer months. It increased 18 percent during an average summer month in 2015, 11 percent in 2014 and 23 percent in 2013.
Device type – Android devices saw the largest increase in online travel transactions conducted from them during an average summer month in 2015 (16 percent) compared to a typical month the rest of the year followed by iPhones (13 percent). In 2014, Windows desktops and laptops (39 percent) saw the biggest increase followed by Macs (36 percent). In 2013, iPhones saw the biggest increase (59 percent) followed by Android phones (57 percent).
“Our research shows that when people are out and about in the summer, they like to use their mobile device to book their travel and fraudsters like to do the same,” said iovation’s CTO, Scott Waddell.