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Brands sacrifice profit for customer loyalty, pay the price as fraud surges

Thursday, May 15, 2025 — 16:03:31 (UTC)

London, May 15, 2025—A new global report from Ravelin reveals millions lost to fraud amid rising fraud and reluctance to act

Online retailers are losing millions to fraud each year, and many are making the problem worse by prioritising customer loyalty over meaningful fraud prevention.

This is one of the key findings from Ravelin’s annual Global Fraud Survey 2025, which paints a picture of escalating fraud and widespread hesitation to act.

The imbalance in approach means the issues companies are experiencing with fraud, particularly refund abuse, are worsening. Based on a survey of hundreds of leading global e-commerce merchants, 77% saw a year-on-year rise in fraud, and most believed that consumers pose as much of a threat as professional fraudsters.

Over half (54%) of merchants say refund abuse has increased while 55% agree it will continue to rise in the next year. 43% receive refund requests on more than 5% of their sales and 9 in 10 say seamless refunds are important to their business model.

The average business is now losing $10.6 million (£8,183 million) annually to fraud. Retail and travel are the most impacted sectors, with both showing an annual average loss of $11 million to fraud.

Despite the financial hit, 66% of merchants consider customer loyalty and brand reputation more important than stopping refund abuse. 38% of responders cited friction and customer churn as the biggest obstacles to efficient fraud prevention. Yet, when done correctly, fraud prevention actually improves customer experiences. Good fraud prevention does not equal friction for most shoppers.

Ravelin CEO Martin Sweeney said: “Too many retailers are happy to dismiss fraud as a cost of doing business. Downplaying fraud to protect the customer experience is a false dichotomy. Armed with the right tools and intelligence, retailers can build context about every single customer, easily telling fraudsters from legitimate shoppers. That enables them to tackle the fraudsters in the right way and ensure good customers get the great online shopping experiences they deserve.”

The decision not to fully address fraud impacts revenue and threatens long-term sustainability. For the first time, revenue overtook growth as the business metric most affected by fraud, with over half (52%) of merchants saying it has directly impacted their bottom line in the past year.

Balancing security measures with customer experience is considered critical for responders going forward. 50% say they’d prefer a balanced approach, but 42% still opt to take a harder line and block more customers, even if that means good customers face additional hurdles in completing their purchase.

Looking at fraud globally, overall, Canadian merchants report the most significant increase in fraud, at 28%, and in the UK, it’s 14%.

Sweeney concludes, “With the financial and reputational stakes rising, the message is clear: fraud is no longer a side issue - it’s a core business risk. Now, merchants can have robust fraud controls that protect themselves and their honest customers. They can deliver great customer experiences, all while clawing back lost revenues.”

Ravelin’s machine learning platform is designed to help merchants manage this complexity at scale by reducing false positives, uncovering suspicious behaviour and balancing fraud detection with a frictionless customer experience.

*ends*

Survey methodology

In January 2025, Ravelin commissioned research provider Qualtrics to carry out an online survey of 1466 fraud and payments professionals from around the world, with a focus on the UK, USA, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, Brazil, and Mexico.

Participants belonged to the C-suite or Fraud/Risk, Finance/Payments, Compliance/Operations or Product teams of enterprises in the following industries: Retail, Travel & Hospitality, Digital Goods, Marketplaces. Survey participants all worked for companies with more than $50 million in annual revenue and/or over 500 employees, which sell their products either online or both online and offline. They were asked questions around their observations, attitudes and predictions related to fraud and payments in the past 12 months, at present, as well as in the future.

About Ravelin

AI-native fraud prevention company Ravelin provides technology and support that helps 300+ online companies prevent evolving fraud threats and accept payments with confidence. Combining machine learning, graph networks, behavioural analysis, and expert rules, Ravelin has been empowering businesses to draw deeper insights from their customer data to detect fraud, account takeover and promotion abuse, and increase payment acceptance for over 10 years. Find out more at www.ravelin.com

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Source: Company press release.

Categories: Reports and research