The True Cost of Fraud™ Study

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Discover how retail and ecommerce merchants in North America are protecting customers and transactions from sophisticated identity fraud.

In the latest LexisNexis® True Cost of Fraud™ study, merchants share widespread confidence in fraud prevention processes despite critical challenges:

The average merchant spends $4.60 on each dollar lost to fraud — a 32% increase since 2022.
More than 40% of merchant organizations rely on manual fraud prevention processes.
Fraud prevention increases customer churn at 59% of U.S. merchants and 46% of Canadian merchants.

How are forward-thinking retail and ecommerce organizations increasing conversions and approvals while mitigating fraud losses across channels, payment methods and the customer journey?

To find out, download the study, and benchmark your retail or ecommerce business against responses from over 500 risk and fraud executives in the industry.

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Additional Insights

True Cost of Fraud Study Retail and Ecommerce Infographic

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2023 True Cost of Fraud Study Retail and Ecommerce

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2022 True Cost of Fraud Study Retail and Ecommerce

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2021 True Cost of Fraud Study Retail and Ecommerce

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2025 Highlight Video

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Financial Services Corporations

Fraud Identity

Discover True Cost of Fraud™ Study Results

Navigate the rising risk of fraud and learn how to grow your business more safely. Explore current fraud costs, attack rates, trends, challenges and recommendations for your industry.

Discover This Year’s Key Fraud Cost Drivers

The LexisNexis® True Cost of Fraud™ Study offers a timely picture of current fraud trends facing the financial and retail industries in the U.S. and Canada by analyzing in-depth surveys from over 700 risk and fraud executives every year.

Building on 15 consecutive years of research, the True Cost of Fraud study explores current and emerging fraud trends, and shares insights and recommendations on how to better manage fraud risks and strengthen customer trust.

Select a True Cost of Fraud™ Study from the tabs below:

Ecommerce and Retail Fraud Increases

Identity and transaction fraud pose double threat

As adoption of digital services increases across North America, cybercriminals are exploiting more opportunities to target both consumers and businesses. The results of the latest LexisNexis® True Cost of Fraud^TM Study for Ecommerce and Retail show a substantial increase both in the volume and sophistication of fraud.

New account creation poses the greatest risk, according to merchants. Nearly half of fraud losses can be traced back to this stage in the customer journey, due to common challenges verifying consumer identity information, discerning between human and malicious bot transactions and assessing international transactions with specialized fraud prevention tools. Merchants report 30% greater losses due to chargebacks in 2023 than in 2022.

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Infographic: Key Study Findings

Which fraud type has increased more? What are the most common impacts of fraud? Which solutions appear most frequently in two-year investment plans? Find out.

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Scams drive over one-third of losses

Nearly half (46%) of merchants say they have undertaken efforts to educate customers about information security and how to protect themselves against scams. Unfortunately, the number of consumers falling prey to scammers continue to grow. Across North America, about half of all merchants report seeing an increase in scams over the last year, with ecommerce merchants more likely to encounter scams.

changing trends in scams over the past year

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Infographic: Key Study Findings

Which fraud type has increased more? What are the most common impacts of fraud? Which solutions appear most frequently in two-year investment plans? Find out.

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With scams, criminals diversify their efforts and increase their chances of illicit gain. Merchants will need to revisit fraud prevention protocol across the consumer journey in order to mitigate the additional risk exposure without adversely impacting the customer experience.

Additional 2023 True Cost of Fraud Study Highlights

Identity verification challenges for the cost of fraud

Identity Verification Challenges
Identity fraud remains a key issue for merchants and represents a considerable share of fraud losses. Breached digital-identity data (email addresses, phone numbers) are being exploited for synthetic identities and fake accounts.

Changing payment methods for the cost of fraud

Changing Payment Methods
The payments landscape continues a rapid evolution. Merchants are involved in more transactions involving non-bank, third-party payment providers, which can introduce new, often unexpected risks. Digital payments and BNPL transactions made up 37% of fraud losses in 2023.

Integration cyber security for the cost of fraud

Integration of Cybersecurity and Digital Customer Service
Over two-thirds (69%) of North American merchants say they have integrated their digital/customer experience operations with fraud prevention, as they attempt to minimize customer friction, especially since abandonment is a common risk with remote channel transactions.

Cyber security alerts for the cost of fraud

Customer Relationships Are On The Line
The impact of fraud smolders over time. Three-quarters of respondents report that fraud has negatively impacted their brand and customer experience, either through difficulty establishing trust with consumers, spurring churn or impacting conversion rates.

Verify online and offline traits for the cost of fraud

Verify Online and Offline Traits
To be effective, solutions must be able to verify both physical and digital identity attributes across different customer touchpoints and assess transaction risk in a fast, seamless manner for customers.

Pay off using best practices for the cost of fraud

Smart Practices Pay Off
Merchants who invest in multi-layered solutions that are integrated with cybersecurity and digital experience operations sustain lower fraud losses. Comparatively, they incur 46% less in fraud losses than peers with a limited range of solutions in place.

Identity Verification Challenges

Identity fraud remains a key issue for merchants and represents a considerable share of fraud losses. Breached digital-identity data (e-mail addresses, phone numbers) are being exploited for synthetic identities and fake accounts.

Changing Payment Methods

The payments landscape continues a rapid evolution. Merchants are involved in more transactions involving non-bank, third-party payment providers, which can introduce new, often unexpected risks. Digital payments and BNPL transactions made up 37% of fraud losses in 2023.

Integration of Cybersecurity and Digital Customer Service

Over two-thirds (69%) of North American merchants say they have integrated their digital/customer experience operations with fraud prevention, as they attempt to minimize customer friction, especially since abandonment is a common risk with remote channel transactions.

Customer Relationships Are On The Line

The impact of fraud smolders over time. Three-quarters of respondents report that fraud has negatively impacted their brand and customer experience, either through difficulty establishing trust with consumers, spurring churn or impacting conversion rates.

Verify Online and Offline Traits

To be effective, solutions must be able to verify both physical and digital identity attributes across different customer touchpoints and assess transaction risk in a fast, seamless manner for customers.

Smart Practices Pay Off

Merchants who invest in multi-layered solutions that are integrated with cybersecurity and digital experience operations sustain lower fraud losses. Comparatively, they incur 46% less in fraud losses than peers with a limited range of solutions in place.

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Insights From Past Ecommerce and Retail Studies

2022 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Retail and Ecommerce

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2021 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Retail and Ecommerce

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2020 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Retail and Ecommerce

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2019 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Retail and Ecommerce

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Globalization And Digitalization Increase The Risks Of Fraud

Identity Theft And Digital Payment Fraud Grew Quickly according to the LexisNexis® True Cost of Fraud™ Study.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions True cost of fraud study cover

In North America, 57% of financial services organizations and 66% of lending organizations report an increase in overall fraud levels in the past 12 months.

Identity theft and fraud targeting mobile transactions outpaced other fast-growing vectors, with account takeover fraud and scams also increasing at over half of surveyed firms.

LexisNexis® Risk Solutions has been tracking fraud costs and attack trends for more than 14 years. The LexisNexis® True Cost of Fraud^TMStudy: Financial Services and Lending Report examines current challenges and successes:

The impact of COVID on the cost of fraud

Fraud costs and attack volumes to financial services providers

Impact of scams targeting consumers directly

Org Challenges Customer Centric for the cost of fraud

Challenge of accurate identity verification across the customer journey

The delicate balance of the cost of fraud

How a multi-layered solutions approach helps mitigate more financial loss

Organizations that build a more robust posture against fraud throughout customer journey stages report 41% lower fraud losses compared to the least mature organizations.

Fraud Attacks Increase For Financial Services and Lending Firms

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Mobile Growth In Financial Services and Lending

Mobile usage is on the rise for financial services and lending firms. Learn how these firms are faring.

Effects of Fraud Across Financial Services Firms

Learn how fraud has risen sharply across all segments of Financial Services, from small firms to massive institutions.

Key trends in this industry related to fraud include scams targeting digital payments, increased bots and challenges with identity verification.

The True Cost of Fraud™ Study: North American Financial Services and Lending Report examines (a) how financial services businesses are keeping ahead of fraudsters, (b) what processes they have implemented, (c) what types of fraud are trending and (d) what prevention methods are working.

The findings come from a survey of 350+ risk and fraud management executives in financial services and lending companies in the U.S. and Canada. Subject areas include fraud costs and attack volumes, changes across consumer-engagement channels, scams impacting the customer journey and fraud-prevention smart practices. Get all the latest findings, figures and recommendations.

Infographic: Key Study Findings

Which fraud type has increased more? What are the most common impacts of fraud? Which solutions appear most frequently in two-year investment plans? Find out.

Download Infographic

The Rising Cost of Fraud

U.S. and Canadian financial services firms’ fraud costs continue to rise, up to 31% year-over-year. The cost of fraud is highest among
Canadian credit lenders, where every $1 of fraud loss actually costs $4.67. For U.S. firms, every $1 of fraud loss costs $4.41.

Fraud attack volumes rose across industries and geographies, particularly at account login.

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of financial firms report overall fraud increasing at least 6% in the prior 12 months. Synthetic identity fraud
incurred the greatest losses of any fraud type, causing the greatest impact at distribution of funds for U.S. firms and Canadian financial services.

Key Challenges in the Fight Against Fraud

Frustrated man on computer on true cost of fraud

The online and mobile fraud landscape continues to evolve. Fraudsters relentlessly seek new vulnerabilities to exploit, such as through new methods of payment and changing consumer behavior. They’re also continually devising new scam stories and increasing the volume of automated attacks via bots.

Financial services companies and lending institutions can never let their guard down. Effective fraud prevention begins with confident identity verification and rigorous authentication, but without unnecessarily impacting the customer experience. Both verification and authentication remain challenges for financial services firms and lenders, elevating risk of fraud across the customer journey.

As more transactions occur online, and consumers become increasingly comfortable interacting via digital channels, financial businesses must navigate substantial and varied forms of risk, including some that may evade legacy fraud and risk mitigation processes.

However, consumers expect fast, convenient experiences across platforms and devices. Undue delay or caution can result in a negative customer experience that impacts brand reputation and customer satisfaction.

Plot the Path Forward

The True Cost of Fraud Study of North American Financial Services and Lending Report delivers not only essential insight for navigating emerging fraud trends, but also indicates recommendations to fortify risk management strategies:

Include digital identity attributes and behavioral analytics to increase trust in anonymous users.

Take a more dynamic, agile and simplified approach to protect each phase of the customer journey.

Detect and mitigate more scams via multiple layers of complementary capabilities and robust intelligence.

Distinguish legitimate customers from malicious bots via advanced technology-based solutions.

Mitigate fraud during the distribution of funds via transaction risk technology.

Study findings underscore the value of adding third-party, near real-time data and transaction tracking tools.

There’s also a need to employ more digital identity and behavior data and analysis to enable safer and more efficient remote digital interactions and transactions.

Balance is key: Best results come from a multi-layered approach capable of adapting to the potential risk of each transaction. Organizations that build a broad net of defense against fraud throughout customer journey stages report 41% lower fraud losses than organizations with comparatively limited measures.

Download the study now.

Insights From Past Financial Services and Lending Study

2022 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Financial Services and Lending

Download Study

2021 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Financial Services and Lending

Download Study

2020 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Financial Services and Lending

Download Study

2019 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Financial Services and Lending

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Fight Fraud Successfully

Study analyzes what’s working in fraud detection and prevention.

LexisNexis® True Cost of Fraud™ Real Estate Study

New data reveals that fraud is rising for mortgage origination, mortgage servicing and title/settlement companies in the U.S. LexisNexis® Risk Solutions recently conducted a study in which we surveyed 360 risk and fraud executives in the industry.

The results are meant to help organizations take a look at their own fraud-related issues and be proactive in making improvements. Here’s what the study found:

Attack Volume and Costs: The volume and cost of mortgage-related fraud is high for originators, servicers and title/settlement firms. Much of that cost goes to labor used for fraud detection, investigation, reporting and recovery. Depository originators have the highest cost. Every $1 of fraud costs them $5.34.

Transactional Types: The biggest culprit in fraud costs involves consumers purchasing a new home through online and mobile transactions. However, depository originators and title/settlement companies also experience significant fraud losses from construction-related loans.

Identity Challenge: The biggest challenge for mortgage and title companies is identity verification. However, companies are hesitant to step up their identity verification process because it contributes to customer friction.

Additionally, mortgage and title companies struggle to detect malicious bots and distinguish legitimate customers from fraudsters. This is especially true for the mobile channel but they are also seeing an increase in fraud with call center/phone-based interactions.

Current Fraud Protection: Most organizations have inadequate fraud protection. They must step up their prevention methods if they are to keep pace in mitigating risk. They can no longer react to fraud after it happens; they need to be proactive or risk significant losses.

Top Recommendations: The most effective fraud protection comes from a multi-layered solutions approach, according to the study. There’s no one-size-fits-all so businesses need to employ different solutions to combat different types of fraud.

To add fortitude to their fraud prevention, the study recommends integrating their fraud processes with their cybersecurity operations and the digital customer experience. Intertwining those areas creates a stronger defense without causing excessive friction for customers.

Additionally, layering in supportive capabilities such as Social Media intelligence and AI/ML further strengthens fraud prevention. It lowers both the cost and volume of successful fraud.

Want to know more? The “LexisNexis® True Cost of Fraud™ Real Estate Study", includes detailed data on fraud attacks, costs, mobile channel impact, customer journey fraud risks and fraud prevention best practices. Get all the latest facts, figures and recommendations.

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Complete the form to download the 2022 study

This document is for informational purposes only. LexisNexis Risk Solutions does not represent nor warrant that this document is complete or error free.
LexisNexis and the Knowledge Burst logo are registered trademarks and LexisNexis Fraud Multiplier is a trademark of RELX Inc. True Cost of Fraud is a
trademark of LexisNexis Risk Solutions Inc. Other products and services may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
Copyright © 2025 LexisNexis Risk Solutions.

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The True Cost of Fraud™ Study

Discover how retail and ecommerce merchants in North America are protecting customers and transactions from sophisticated identity fraud.

Complete the form to download the latest study

Thank you.

Additional Insights

True Cost of Fraud Study Retail and Ecommerce Infographic

2023 True Cost of Fraud Study Retail and Ecommerce

2022 True Cost of Fraud Study Retail and Ecommerce

2021 True Cost of Fraud Study Retail and Ecommerce

2025 Highlight Video

Discover True Cost of Fraud™ Study Results

Discover This Year’s Key Fraud Cost Drivers

Select a True Cost of Fraud™ Study from the tabs below:

Ecommerce and Retail Fraud Increases

Identity and transaction fraud pose double threat

Complete the form to download the latest study

Infographic: Key Study Findings

Scams drive over one-third of losses

Complete the form to download the latest study

Infographic: Key Study Findings

Additional 2023 True Cost of Fraud Study Highlights

Additional 2023 True Cost of Fraud Study Highlights

Identity Verification Challenges

Changing Payment Methods

Integration of Cybersecurity and Digital Customer Service

Customer Relationships Are On The Line

Verify Online and Offline Traits

Smart Practices Pay Off

Insights From Past Ecommerce and Retail Studies

2022 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Retail and Ecommerce

2021 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Retail and Ecommerce

2020 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Retail and Ecommerce

2019 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Retail and Ecommerce

Globalization And Digitalization Increase The Risks Of Fraud

Identity Theft And Digital Payment Fraud Grew Quickly according to the LexisNexis® True Cost of Fraud™ Study.

LexisNexis® Risk Solutions has been tracking fraud costs and attack trends for more than 14 years. The LexisNexis® True Cost of FraudTM Study: Financial Services and Lending Report examines current challenges and successes:

Fraud Attacks Increase For Financial Services and Lending Firms

Complete the form to download the study

Thank you.

Mobile Growth In Financial Services and Lending

Effects of Fraud Across Financial Services Firms

Share

Infographic: Key Study Findings

The Rising Cost of Fraud

Key Challenges in the Fight Against Fraud

Plot the Path Forward

Insights From Past Financial Services and Lending Study

2022 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Financial Services and Lending

2021 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Financial Services and Lending

2020 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Financial Services and Lending

2019 True Cost of Fraud™ Study Financial Services and Lending

Fight Fraud Successfully

Study analyzes what’s working in fraud detection and prevention.

Complete the form to download the 2022 study

Thank you.

Related Resources

LexisNexis® Risk Solutions Cybercrime Report

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LexisNexis® Risk Solutions has been tracking fraud costs and attack trends for more than 14 years. The LexisNexis® True Cost of Fraud^TMStudy: Financial Services and Lending Report examines current challenges and successes: