Fraudulent eCommerce transactions to surpass $131 billion by 2030 globally; driven by escalating friendly fraud

New research from global tech strategists Juniper Research has found that eCommerce fraud will rise from $56bn in 2025 to $131bn in 2030; posting a 133% increase over the period. This surge is fuelled by rising friendly fraud, where legitimate transactions are being fraudulently disputed.

Shane O’Sullivan, Research Analyst, explained: “The fastest-growing form of eCommerce fraud is not criminals breaking in, it is bad actors blending in. A significant proportion of consumers file disputes without first contacting merchants, and many disputes stem from misunderstanding or misuse of promotions and chargeback systems; increasing losses.”

Persistent Fraud to Erode Margins, Leading to Heavy Investment in Prevention Tech

The research found that friendly fraud is heavily impacting merchant margins, with chargebacks in particular increasingly triggering higher processing fees. The report highlights that businesses will accelerate investment in prevention systems, particularly in North America, which is disproportionately impacted by friendly fraud. As such, by 2030, over 70% of global eCommerce fraud prevention spend will be from North America.

Fraud prevention specialists must position systems as essential margin-protection infrastructure; enabling merchants to contain fraud costs before they scale alongside transaction volumes.

“Vendors are building AI-driven, fraud prevention platforms; moving fraud prevention to a proactive footing. Simultaneously, regulators are expanding digital identity frameworks and tightening compliance. Together, this creates a competitive ecosystem where innovation and accuracy are key differentiators. As abuse becomes increasingly driven by specific accounts and identities, prevention vendors must shift away from securing individual transactions and pivot towards persistent identity signals,” O’Sullivan concluded.

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Juniper Research complimentary whitepaper, Beyond Chargebacks: The True Cost of Fraud for Digital Commerce, examines the state of the eCommerce fraud prevention market; considering the impact of evolving digital fraud strategies, including key trends such as identity theft, account takeovers, chargebacks, policy abuse and friendly fraud. It examines various solutions from traditional transaction rules to emerging technologies such as AI and machine learning. Additionally, it includes a forecast summary of the total value of fraudulent digital eCommerce goods in 2030.

An extract from the new report, eCommerce Fraud Prevention Market 2025-2030, is now available as a free download.