Across today’s online marketplaces, understanding the customer isn’t enough. eCommerce firms need to also understand the criminal.
Whether it’s bogus chargebacks plaguing fashion retailers, artificial intelligence deepfakes driving false reviews, fake SKU inflation hitting electronics sellers, or return abuse targeting beauty brands, today’s eCommerce scams are no longer the work of lone wolves or clumsy opportunists wearing hoodies with Dorito dust on their fingers. The most modern breed of scams and cyber fraud is targeted, sector-specific, and often automated.
Increasingly, these scams can look a lot like legitimate behavior. The latest annual report from Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit revealed that eCommerce scams are evolving as fast, if not faster, than the platforms they exploit.
The common thread among contemporary eCommerce scams isn’t just the product. It’s the assumption that eCommerce is frictionless, and the attack vectors that this assumption opens for criminals.
The impact of eCommerce fraud is real. Amazon’s report highlighted that over the past five years, Amazon has filed more than 200 civil suits with the resulting settlements and judgments totaling over $180 million, with more than 65 individuals sent to prison.
As the summer shopping season heats up, with Amazon for example having extended its Prime Day event to four days (July 8-11), prompting Walmart and Target to launch competing sales windows, online merchants must ensure that when a customer clicks “buy,” they get their purchase, not a fraud-driven headache.
Read also: Dissecting the Criminal Mind: Why They Target Company Data
The New Face of eCommerce Fraud
In 2025, eCommerce crime isn’t monolithic. It’s a mosaic of threats, each tailored to the operational rhythms of different verticals.
Fashion retailers, for example, can find themselves grappling with a rise in friendly fraud and false chargebacks from customers who claim an item wasn’t delivered or was returned, when in fact it wasn’t. The industry’s high transaction volume, combined with liberal return policies and frequent promotions, creates fertile ground for abuse.
Meanwhile, consumer electronics sellers face an altogether different problem: SKU inflation. Here, fraudsters can manipulate product listings by inflating reviews, boosting visibility for counterfeit or low-quality goods. In some cases, they hijack dormant Amazon Standard Identification Numbers, or ASINs, repurposing them for different products. It’s a quiet heist — no stolen credit cards, just hijacked trust.
Meanwhile, the beauty sector is a multibillion-dollar industry plagued by counterfeit goods. But now, even legitimate sellers are under siege, thanks to return abuse. Scammers have been known to order expensive skincare products, replace the contents with lookalike substitutes, or even just water, and ship them back for a full refund. Thanks to automated returns systems, they often get away with it.
What makes eCommerce scams especially difficult to police today is the extent to which they are automated. Fraudsters are using bots not only to mass-create fake accounts but also to conduct A/B testing on the fraud itself — trying out different refund stories, testing chargeback strategies, and optimizing language for maximum success.
Companies aren’t sitting idly by. The most forward-thinking eCommerce platforms are adopting a multilayered approach to fraud prevention, one that combines traditional rule-based systems with real-time AI, behavioral analytics and supply chain traceability innovations.
See also: Rise of Industrialized Fraud Heats Up Cyber Arms Race
Digital Commerce Fraud Prevention Is Becoming Predictive, Not Reactive
The changing nature of commerce is helping to drive the changing face of fraud. According to PYMNTS Intelligence’s “2025 Global Digital Shopping Index,” drawn from a survey of over 18,000 consumers and nearly 3,500 merchants across eight countries, 60% of consumers browse merchant sites on their phone multiple times a week, converting nearly half of those browsing sessions into sales.
As PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster said in an interview with Block Risk Lead Brian Boates, PYMNTS Intelligence found that even tech-savvy young consumers who use their phones as a conduit to everyday life reported the challenges of avoiding scams.
“The last time we went into the field, we found that about 3 in 10 consumers say they’ve been scammed, and about 40% of Gen Z” has fallen prey to the fraudsters, Webster said.
Meanwhile, the PYMNTS Intelligence report “How eCommerce Merchants Fight Fraud for the Holiday Shopping Season” found that many shoppers are willing to pay a premium to prevent eCommerce fraud. Nearly one-third of consumers said they are willing to pay up to 5% of the total cost of their transactions for relevant insurance coverage. Similarly, 70% of consumers said having greater insurance protection would increase their confidence in making online purchases. Today, insurance protection is available from roughly half of eCommerce merchants.
Ultimately, the fight against eCommerce scams isn’t about achieving zero fraud — that’s an impossible target. It’s about developing resilience — the ability to detect, respond and adapt in real time.
Source: PYMNTS