The significant reopening will soon happen. Life is returning to normal in many parts of the world.
For fraudsters and other criminals trying to utilize our personal information and card-level data to develop their illegal activities, it also reopens some lucrative avenues.
The con artists are very resourceful and intelligent. They have quickly adapted to changes in consumer behavior, just like genuine businesses do.
Michael Jabbara, the director of fraud services at Visa, said as much in a recent conversation. The use of skimmers and other point-of-sale data theft strategies is encouraged by consumers’ return to their pre-pandemic purchasing patterns.
Personal Contact Is Being Assaulted
The subject of conversation came up when Visa gave an update on how payment fraud has altered as a result of the epidemic. There are now more people frequenting businesses, bars, restaurants, and gas stations, and crime has also started to return to those locations.
The payments network elaborated on those trends in the most recent Visa Biannual Threats Study and the MIT Technology Review Insights report “Moving Money in a Digital World” (in partnership with Visa).
For instance, Visa revealed that from June to November 2021, there were 176% more physical skimming devices than there were during the previous 12-month period.