Fraud-related complaints soar in Mexico e-commerce

Mexican financial consumer watchdog Condusef said it received 1.7mn complaints of possible fraud in the first quarter, a 13% year-on-year increase, with 1mn of these related to e-commerce, up 74% y-o-y.

The e-commerce complaints amounted to a monetary value of 1.22bn pesos (US$64mn).

Growing fast amid rapid adoption of online banking by Mexican consumers, complaints related to mobile banking services jumped 155% to 22,783, according to a Condusef report.

Transactions made in person, conversely, fell in the comparison with complaints tied to physical point-of-sale operations down 31% to 428,798, while ATM-related complaints fell 44% to 28,085.

All told, cybernetic fraud complaints - based on transactions using some digital platform - represented 61% of the total and rose 63%, while the remainder, categorized as traditional fraud, fell 24% y-o-y.

With respect to e-commerce transactions handled by major banking institutions, Condusef reported that Banco Santander received the most complaints in the first quarter with 286,277 - up 105% y-o-y - with funds involved amounting to 212mn pesos.

Citibanamex received 261,322 complaints, up 50%, and totaling 335mn pesos. Banorte-IXE saw 116% more complaints at 255,832, with a monetary value of 260mn pesos.

The following table breaks down the complaints filed in the first quarters of 2017 and 2018 using Condusef data.

Of total e-commerce complaints, about 50% were for amounts less than 200 pesos, mostly involving digital downloads, purchases of music and movies, as well as transportation, Condusef noted.

There were 308,860 complaints related to popular digital platforms and streaming services (e.g. Spotify, Google Play music, Netflix and Xbox) with the monetary value of complaints amounting to 15.9mn pesos. Private transportation platforms (e.g. Uber, Cabify and Rappi) generated 157,319 complaints for a total of 24.7mn pesos.

In the same comparison, the figures for entertainment outlets (Cinépolis, Cinemex, Sports Emotion, Hot) were 121,501 and 36.6mn pesos, respectively.