Our Top 3 Tips: How to Prevent Fraud in Your Webshop

Our Top 3 Tips: How to Prevent Fraud in Your Webshop

Have you experienced fraud in your online store? Too many webshops are vulnerable. In fact, Dansk Erhverv reported that 38% of Danish online retailers were targeted by fraudsters in 2024. The most common methods were phishing and the use of stolen credit cards.

For dig som webshopejer kan det betyde risiko for tabte indtægter, mistet kundetillid og ekstra omkostninger. Derfor er det afgørende at handle proaktivt – uden at gå på kompromis med en smidig kundeoplevelse. Her får du tre konkrete og gennemtestede tips, som hjælper dig med at beskytte din webshop og skabe tryghed for dine kunder. 

For you as a shop owner, this can lead to lost revenue, diminished customer trust, and unforeseen costs. That is why it is crucial to act proactively - without compromising a seamless customer experience. Here are three concrete, battle-tested tips to help you protect your webshop and ensure peace of mind for your customers.

Before we dive into the tips, it’s important to distinguish between two different threats: phishing and credit card fraud.

1. Phising and Technical Attacks: Here, hackers compromise your webshop’s code to deceive your customers. A common method is installing a fake payment form directly in your checkout, which intercepts the customer’s card details before they ever reach your actual payment gateway.

2. Stolen Card Fraud: Here, stolen card information is used to complete an order on an otherwise secure and functioning webshop.

The three tips in this article focus on identifying and stopping fraudulent orders (point 2). Protecting yourself against direct technical attacks (point 1) is instead a matter of fundamental platform maintenance:

• Keep your webshop and all systems updated: Regular updates to your platform, plugins, and themes close the security holes that hackers exploit.
• Perform regular checks: Conduct test purchases periodically to ensure the payment process looks and functions exactly as it should.

Once the technical foundation is in place, you are ready to catch the fraudsters attempting to shop with stolen cards.

1. Learn to Spot the Fraudsters' Digital Footprints

Fraud methods are becoming more sophisticated, but fortunately, so are the tools at your disposal.

Effective protection is about combining robust systems with a vigilant human eye. While automated fraud monitoring via your payment gateway catches the vast majority of attempts, having a manual review procedure is a vital supplement. The ability to recognize suspicious data patterns before an order is shipped is a critical tool.

Fraudsters often leave digital footprints. By knowing what to look for, you and your team can quickly spot red flags.

How to check for fraud:

• Geographical Discrepancies: Is the order coming from a country you don't normally deal with? More importantly: Is the delivery address in one country while the IP address (the customer's location) is in another? This can be a sign of stolen card data.

Check where the customer's IP address originated here:
https://www.ip2location.com/demo/118.148.74.191

• Atypical Order Behavior: Be alert to orders that are significantly larger than your average order value, especially from first-time customers. Fraudsters often try to maximize value before a stolen card is blocked. Also, keep an eye out for multiple rapid purchases from the same customer within a short timeframe.
  

• Mismatched Customer Information: Does the name on the card match the recipient's name? Are the shipping and billing addresses vastly different? While there may be legitimate reasons (e.g., a gift), it should trigger an alarm, especially when combined with other red flags.

• Suspicious Login Activity: Many failed login attempts from the same IP address can indicate an attempt to breach a customer account. This is known as a "brute force attack" and can be used to take over existing customer accounts.

Monitoring these patterns in your order flow creates a powerful human filter to support your automated systems.

2. Stay Ahead in a Constantly Changing Landscape

The fight against fraud is a constant race. Fraudsters' methods are evolving, and in response, legislation is continuously tightened. Understanding the latest trends isn't just a technical exercise – it's essential for protecting your business and maintaining customer trust.

What was secure enough yesterday may be an open door for fraudsters tomorrow.

The key developments you need to know:

• AI is the Fraudster's New Best Friend – And Yours: Criminals use AI to create more convincing phishing emails and automate attacks at an unprecedented scale. Conversely, the best security systems use AI to analyze millions of transactions in real-time, detecting complex patterns no human could see. Your advantage lies in having a partner whose technology stays one step ahead.

• Evolution of Legislation: From PSD2 to PSD3: You are likely familiar with the PSD2 directive, which introduced Strong Customer Authentication (SCA). This made 3D Secure the industry standard. However, its successor, PSD3, is already on the horizon. This new directive will place even more emphasis on proactive fraud prevention and grant customers more rights regarding new forms of fraud, such as "spoofing" (where a fraudster poses as a bank).

• The Challenge: Necessary Security vs. A Seamless Experience: Today's customers expect lightning-fast, frictionless payments. The challenge is not to avoid security checks – as they are legally required – but to make them as intelligent and seamless as possible.

  SCA means that the customer must actively approve a payment using at least two independent factors. As correctly pointed out, this isn't just 3D Secure with MitID for card payments. It can just as easily be an approval in the MobilePay app, where access to the phone and the app itself constitutes the security.

The challenge, therefore, is not to avoid security checks – as they are legally required – but to make them as intelligent and frictionless as possible. This is where modern payment systems and risk-based analysis play a central role. The system assesses the risk of each individual transaction:

• For most normal purchases, a standard, fast SCA process (which the customer is familiar with) is triggered.
• For very low-risk transactions (e.g., small amounts from a known customer), regulations may in some cases allow for an SCA exemption, providing a completely frictionless experience.
• For high-risk transactions, additional checks may be introduced, or the transaction may be declined by the customer's bank.

The goal is to let security work intelligently in the background. Mandatory checks should feel like a natural and reassuring part of the purchase – not an unnecessary obstacle standing in the way of a sale.

3. Choose Secure and Flexible Payment Solutions

The final and perhaps most important piece of advice concerns your payment solution. It is the heart of your webshop – and one of the most critical places to prevent fraud. Outdated systems can neither handle modern threats nor live up to customer expectations.

How to strengthen your security:

• Use 3D Secure (SCA) for extra card security:
  Protect your customers and yourself against fraud with strong customer authentication via SMS codes or digital ID (MitID).

• Offer secure payment methods like MobilePay, cards, and wallets:
  Providing multiple payment choices increases both conversion and security – while offering a better customer experience.

These security measures are essential for any modern webshop. Rather than piecing together a solution, it’s about choosing a payment partner where security is a built-in part of the foundation.

At pensopay, this is exactly our mission. We have built our platform around proactive protection so you don't have to worry. Advanced card security with 3D Secure 2.0 is a given, a wide range of recognized payment methods provides both flexibility and peace of mind, and our systems automatically protect your business around the clock.

This way, you can have peace of mind and focus on what matters most: driving growth and giving your customers a great experience.

Read more articles and guides from pensopay 

Want to dive even deeper into payment solutions and e-commerce? See all news from pensopay, where you will find plenty of tips, guides, and inspiration to optimize your webshop:

You might also find these useful:

• PCI Certification: How We Keep Your Payment Data Safe
• Choose the Ideal Payment Methods for Your Webshop
• Check which integrations we support at pensopay

Team pensopay

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