Specialist fraud fighters, SEON, has strengthened the expansion of its offering ahead of Black Friday. 

The firm announced it will provide online businesses with free fraud detection for 30 days to ensure they are protected at a time when cyberattacks are likely to surge. 

It comes after last year’s excess of 18,000 fraud attempts which were made on average against each UK retailer during the Golden Quarter. 

Furthermore, it is predicted that the figure will reach 20,000 in 2021, costing each business £38,000 and SEON aims to drive this number down by making its fraud detection solution free to use in the run-up to Black Friday and beyond.

Bence Jendruszak, Co-Founder and COO at SEON, commented: “We are going further than any other fraud prevention company by making our fraud detection technology available to the world’s entire eCommerce marketplace throughout one of the most profitable, and most dangerous times of the year. Our company was founded on the idea that fraud fighting should be for everyone: every company, no matter how small or niche, should be able to do business online without losing a significant part of their profits to criminals. 

“We also know that those criminals don’t just target the major companies, but can attack any business of any size. Our hope is when these criminals start seeing more sites protected by SEON, when a higher percentage of their fraud attempts fail, they’ll start giving up and we’ll be done with what has been a very difficult time for companies around the world.”

The last 18 months has seen both eCommerce and digital fraud increase exponentially, particularly during the ‘Golden Quarter’ that extends through Halloween to New Year’s Day and incorporates major shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 

Last year’s Cyber Monday was the biggest online shopping day in history, with $10.8 billion spent online in the US alone according to figures from Adobe. In 2020, the number of attempted payment frauds preceding Black Friday were 385% higher than the year previous and given current fraud trends, SEON expects the fourth quarter of 2021 to be another record-breaking year for both eCommerce and digital crime.