What would it mean for your venue if 500 tickets were purchased overnight using stolen credit cards, and your team had to spend the next day canceling orders, issuing refunds, and returning inventory for sale?
For the many experience-based markets that accesso serves, this scenario is becoming increasingly common.
Global eCommerce fraud losses reached $33.8 billion in 2025, with card-not-present (CNP) fraud expected to hit $28.1 billion by 2026. As more venues move ticketing, food ordering, and guest purchases online, fraudsters are following the same path.
Fraud by the Numbers
Payment fraud is accelerating across digital commerce:
- $33.8B projected global eCommerce fraud losses by 2025
- 135% increase in bot attacks targeting online commerce
- 31% growth in synthetic identity fraud in the past year
- 45% of chargebacks now attributed to friendly fraud
For venues that rely on online ticket sales, these numbers translate directly into lost revenue, operational disruption, and guest experience challenges.
How Payment Fraud Targets Venues
Fraud in the experience economy looks different from traditional retail fraud. Instead of stealing physical goods, criminals exploit digital ticketing and reservations.
Some of the most common attack methods targeting venues today are:
Unauthorized Ticket Reselling
Fraudsters often create fake ticket storefronts advertising discounted admission, express passes, or event tickets.
When a guest purchases a ticket from the fraudulent site, the reseller fulfills the order using stolen payment credentials on the venue’s legitimate checkout system.
The guest receives a valid ticket and attends the event. Weeks later the real cardholder disputes the charge, leaving the venue responsible for the chargeback.
Synthetic Identity Fraud
Synthetic identity fraud combines real and fabricated personal information to create entirely new identities.
Fraudsters may use:
- A legitimate Social Security number
- A different name spelling
- A new email address
Even small variations can allow transactions to bypass basic fraud filters, making this one of the fastest-growing fraud categories.
Bot Attacks and Card Testing
Bot attacks have evolved into large-scale criminal operations.
Automated programs can:
- Bypass ticket purchase limits
- Exhaust inventory during popular on-sale events
- Test thousands of stolen card numbers against checkout systems
One ticketing business reported over 748,000 scalping requests in a single month.
These attacks not only create fraud risk, but they also disrupt legitimate guest purchasing experiences.
Friendly Fraud
Perhaps the most frustrating category for venue operators is friendly fraud, also known as first-party fraud. This occurs when a legitimate customer:
- Purchases tickets
- Attends the event
- Disputes the charge with their bank afterward
According to Mastercard’s State of Chargebacks report, friendly fraud now accounts for over 45% of all chargebacks.
Because the purchase appears legitimate, these disputes are extremely difficult to detect before the transaction occurs.
Why Many Venues Underestimate Fraud Risk
A common misconception among mid-market operators is that fraud primarily targets large retailers.
Research shows that 48% of small and mid-sized businesses believe they are too small to be targeted, and 58% believe they are less vulnerable than larger companies.
The opposite is often true.
Fraudsters frequently target organizations with simpler fraud defenses, knowing they are easier to exploit with many relying on basic safeguards such as Address Verification Service (AVS) and CVV verification. While these measures satisfy card network minimums, they do little to stop modern fraud tactics.
The True Cost of Payment Fraud
The financial impact of fraud extends far beyond the disputed transaction. In the United States, merchants lose an estimated $4.61 for every $1 of fraud when factoring in:
- Chargeback fees
- Operational overhead
- Lost inventory
- Investigation costs
For venues, a $200 fraudulent ticket purchase can quickly become $1,000 in total losses.
And the consequences are escalating.
Visa’s new Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP) will tighten fraud thresholds to 1.5% across major regions starting in April 2026.
Mastercard’s Excessive Chargeback Merchant (ECM) program can impose fines beginning at $1,000 per month and escalating to $100,000 for merchants with excessive dispute rates.
Exceeding these thresholds can lead to higher payment processing costs, financial penalties and in severe cases, the loss of card payment acceptance.
Fraud Prevention Is Becoming a Strategic Priority
As digital ticket sales continue to grow, payment fraud is no longer just a security concern; it’s a revenue protection strategy. Fraud can disrupt sales and create operational challenges.
Venue operators must balance two competing priorities:
- Stopping fraud before it occurs
- Preserving a seamless guest purchasing experience
Achieving that balance requires more advanced fraud detection and prevention approaches than traditional rule-based systems.
In our next article, we explore how venues can take a proactive approach to payment fraud prevention while protecting revenue and maintaining the frictionless digital experiences guests expect.
Sources:
Chargeflow, «The Ultimate Chargeback Statistics 2025» (2025)
Chargebacks911, «Chargeback Stats: All the Key Dispute Data Points for 2026» (2026)
DemandSage, «59 eCommerce Fraud Statistics 2026» (2026)
Security Boulevard, «135% Surge: Inside the Holiday Bot Attacks of December 2025» (2026)
Federal Trade Commission, «BOTS Act Compliance: Time for a Refresher?» (2025)
Merchant Risk Council, «2025 Global eCommerce Payments and Fraud Report» (2025)
Mastercard, «State of Chargebacks 2025» / «Scaling Efforts to Combat Friendly Fraud» (2025)
Visa / Worldpay, «5 Benefits of 3D Secure 2 Authentication» (2025)
Sift, «Fraud Score: How AI Calculates Transaction Risk in Real Time» (2025)
accesso Client Seminar, «Payment Partnerships to Help You Fight Online Fraud» (2021)