If you work in fraud prevention, the first few months of the pandemic probably felt like the ground shifting under your feet.
Consumer behavior changed almost overnight. Shopping moved online. Entire industries slowed down while others suddenly saw massive spikes in traffic and transactions.
And when behavior changes that quickly, fraud usually follows.
In this episode, I wanted to talk about what many of us started seeing early in 2020\. Not just the increase in online activity, but the ways criminals began adapting to it. Because when ecommerce volume jumped dramatically, so did the opportunity for fraud.
Right.
Some retailers saw massive growth almost immediately. In April 2020 alone, online retailers experienced a 52 percent increase in sales compared to April of the previous year. But that growth was not evenly distributed. Some companies were overwhelmed with new orders, while others saw demand disappear.
And that uneven shift created new patterns in fraud.
This episode takes a closer look at pandemic fraud trends and the early signals many fraud teams started noticing as lockdowns changed how people shopped, worked, and interacted online. I also introduce the “What The Fraud” segment, where I highlight one of the more creative scams that surfaced during this time.
Because when circumstances change quickly, criminals tend to experiment.
Here is what that shift in fraud patterns means in practice:
- Rapid ecommerce growth created new openings for fraud attempts
- Consumer behavior changes forced fraud teams to adjust controls quickly
- Fraudster behavior changes often follow major economic or social disruptions
- Pandemic-driven fraud revealed how quickly criminals adapt to new environments
What you’ll hear in this episode:
- How pandemic fraud trends emerged as online shopping increased dramatically
- Why ecommerce growth fraud appeared as retailers struggled to scale quickly
- How consumer behavior changes created new attack opportunities for scammers
- What scam trends during covid looked like across different sectors
- Why fraud trend analysis became critical as fraud and lockdowns reshaped risk signals
You should listen to this episode if you:
- Work in fraud, risk, or trust and safety and want to understand pandemic fraud trends
- Saw an ecommerce fraud surge during lockdowns and want to understand why
- Care about online retail risk and digital shopping fraud patterns
- Are analyzing consumer scam shifts tied to covid-related behavior changes
- Want to understand how changing fraud patterns emerge during major disruptions
If you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe and review the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps with getting the word out.
Episode notes & key takeaways
How covid changed consumer behavior and fraud patterns
Let’s break this down.
One of the biggest drivers behind pandemic fraud trends was the speed of the shift to online commerce. People who rarely shopped online suddenly relied on ecommerce for everyday purchases. That meant new customers, new accounts, and new payment activity appearing almost overnight.
And whenever large groups of new users enter a system quickly, fraud risk increases.
Many of those new online shoppers were not familiar with common scam tactics. They were more likely to trust emails, advertisements, or unfamiliar websites if those appeared connected to products they needed during lockdowns.
That created new opportunities for criminals.
At the same time, fraud teams were dealing with their own operational disruptions. Teams were working remotely. Systems were adjusting to huge increases in transaction volume. And many of the normal patterns fraud models relied on were suddenly unreliable.
- Pandemic fraud trends accelerated as ecommerce usage grew rapidly
- Consumer behavior changes made scam campaigns easier to execute
- Digital shopping fraud increased as new online customers entered the ecosystem
- Fraud trend analysis became more important as historical patterns stopped working
Why criminals adapted so quickly during lockdowns
Here is something fraud teams have seen many times before.
Criminals pay very close attention to behavior changes.
When consumers suddenly began ordering groceries online, fraud followed. When home delivery services surged, fraud followed there too. When digital subscriptions increased, those platforms became targets as well.
We have seen this playbook before.
Attackers rarely invent entirely new strategies during events like this. Instead, they adapt existing tactics to match new consumer behavior. If people are shopping more online, scammers send more phishing emails tied to ecommerce brands. If more people rely on digital services, criminals target those services.
That pattern showed up quickly during covid.
- Fraudster behavior changes tend to mirror shifts in consumer behavior
- Ecommerce fraud surge often follows major changes in purchasing patterns
- Online retail risk increases when companies scale faster than their fraud controls
- Scam trends during covid reflected attackers adapting familiar tactics to new conditions
Why pandemic fraud revealed weaknesses in fraud detection models
Another challenge many fraud teams faced during this period was model reliability.
Fraud detection systems often rely on historical patterns. They analyze what normal behavior looks like, then flag activity that deviates from that baseline. But when an entire population changes behavior at the same time, that baseline stops being reliable.
That is exactly what happened during the early months of the pandemic.
Consumers started ordering groceries online instead of visiting stores. They began purchasing home office equipment. They changed travel plans, subscription patterns, and delivery habits. All of those shifts affected the signals fraud models were trained to interpret.
And suddenly, fraud detection systems were trying to make decisions using outdated assumptions.
That is where human fraud investigators became especially important.
Because when automated systems struggle, experienced analysts can step back and ask the right question: is this activity unusual because it is fraudulent, or because the world just changed?
- Pandemic-driven fraud exposed weaknesses in behavior-based fraud models
- Changing fraud patterns forced teams to rethink automated detection rules
- Fraud trend analysis requires both data science and investigator insight
- Fraud prevention learning often accelerates during periods of disruption
Why the fraud community needs to keep sharing insights
One of the reasons I wanted to talk about pandemic fraud trends on this podcast is because fraud teams learn a lot from each other during moments like this.
When industries change quickly, individual companies often see only part of the picture. One retailer might notice a spike in account takeover attempts. Another might see unusual refund abuse. A third might see phishing campaigns targeting their customers.
But when those insights get shared across the anti-fraud community, a much clearer pattern emerges.
That is one of the goals of the Fraudology podcast.
Create a space where fraud investigators, analysts, and risk leaders can compare observations, talk through new scam patterns, and share lessons about what works and what does not.
Because criminals collaborate and share tactics all the time.
Fraud fighters should too.
