E-commerce fraud level steady, study says   

By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 11/14/2007 12:37:00 PM

Mountain View, Calif. – Online retailers are expected to sustain a full year 2007 loss-to-fraud rate of 1.4% of sales, or about $3.6 billion, according to the annual fraud survey by consulting group CyberSource.

The rate is level, but the dollar amount has increased 20%, keeping pace with the growth of online sales.

There are costs involved. Merchants told the company they are manually reviewing 27% of all orders, up from 23% the year prior, with three of four orders reviewed proving legitimate – up from two of three being acceptable in the prior year.

Overall, CyberSource estimates that approximately 38% more orders were reviewed in 2007 than in 2006, and that extra diligence may have cost merchants an extra $100 million.