Shoppers’ worries about using credit cards online go beyond identity theft
Consumer concern about the safety and security of online credit card transactions has been well-publicized. But because those concerns go beyond identity theft and vary with users’ age, online tenure and affluence, merchants must segment their messaging on fraud protection accordingly or diminish its effectiveness among different audience groups, according to a recent report by Jupiter Research Inc.
Beyond identity theft and card theft, highlighted in a number of current advertising campaigns by card issuers, more than 50% of consumers recently surveyed by Jupiter fear the personal information supplied in an online transaction will be sold to a retailer’s marketing partners and generate unwanted marketing messages. More than a third of those surveyed also expressed concerns that unauthorized recurring transactions, such as subscription renewals, could result from supplying credit card information online. In the survey, 30% of consumers worried about merchants not shipping products for which their credit card had been charged online, while 20% worried that a merchant could debit a card number supplied online for a higher price than the advertised price.
Older consumers were more concerned with identity theft – 63% of those over age 55 surveyed saw it as a threat, versus 56% of those aged 18 to 14. Identity theft concerns lessened as consumers’ online tenure increased. Among young and less-tenured consumers, the greatest concern was merchant duplicity. For example, 32% of those surveyed aged 18 to 24 expressed concern about being charged more than they agreed to pay at checkout, versus 20% of survey respondents overall.
Trust that technology solutions such as Verified by Visa could prevent fraud increased as online tenure increased. Significantly, Jupiter notes that newbies, defined as those with only limited online tenure, will constitute a smaller portion of the overall online audience in years to come. “As newbies will comprise a significantly lower percentage of the population moving forward, it is necessary to present messages that focus increasingly on a tenured online population,” says Jupiter analyst Bruce Cundiff in the report.
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