Callsign, the digital identity pioneer, revealed that the rise of scams is harming the reputation of organisations worldwide. According to a global study by Opinium, 49.8% of consumers lose trust in an organisation if they receive a scam message purporting to be from any brand, irrespective of any real association with the message.
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Financial services and e-commerce are the most targeted industries by fraudsters, with consumers stating that out of the scam messages they receive, 36% represent a retailer, whereas 63% represent their bank. However, the accurate scale of scam messaging and victims are likely to be underestimated as roughly 41% of consumers don’t report fraudulent messages.
“Fraud hides in volume and the rapid migration of the global population online in the last 18 months has led to the industrialisation of scams. The consequence is fraudsters are using the same channels we’re using to authenticate genuine consumers, and this is harming organisations’ reputations with the decrease of trust in their brands,” explained Stuart Dobbie, SVP, Innovation, Callsign.
Almost one-fifth of consumers who have been victims of fraud have stopped using the company with whose name they were scammed. However, a lesser number of consumers are likely to leave the channel the scam is executed through. So irrespective of the scam method, it is the original brand which is scammed that suffers by losing out on customers.
“Organisations need to re-evaluate the communications channels they use to interact with customers to better establish trust. With fraudsters monopolising open channels such as SMS and email, these channels cannot be relied upon to also authenticate identity. Our research shows that over a third (48%) of consumers think identity is the problem and that people should prove who they are when signing up to use a platform to stop scammers. These consumer concerns emphasise organisations must wake up to the importance of digital identification,” explained Dobbie.
Dobbie concluded, “If organisations are to maintain and build trust in the digital world, they need to better balance protection and experience to ensure their brand is not tarnished by scammers. With Intelligence Driven Authentication, organisations can overcome the fraudsters, protect their brand, create seamless and secure customer journeys and build all important digital trust.”
