Report shows consumers expect more fraud protection from digital firms

The 2023 Telecommunications Consumer Report conducted by TransUnion has shown that consumers expect firms within the digital ecosystem to shoulder some of their burden in fighting fraud.

Among all age cohorts in the report issued on Thursday, mobile phone carriers were identified as having the most responsibility for helping consumers protect against fraud on their mobile devices.

The report stated that given the prevalence of SMS and voice phishing attacks, it was no surprise consumers felt mobile carriers should step in to help them protect against fraud.

“As consumers do their best to protect themselves against fraud and identity theft, they expect companies within the digital ecosystem to shoulder some of the burden,” the report stated.

Tech companies providing email and browsing services were also cited by over a quarter of consumers as having responsibility to help protect against fraud, likely tied to email phishing attacks.

The same trend held true when considering tenure with a mobile phone carrier.

Notably, those who were new customers (with less than a year with their mobile phone carriers) were almost as likely to say tech companies were as responsible as mobile carriers to help them combat fraud.

This dropped dramatically as customers age with their mobile carriers, shifting the burden away from tech companies and toward mobile carriers as having the most responsibility to help them fight against fraud.

“It is important for a mobile carrier’s retention strategy to deploy solutions to help address their customers’ concerns relating to fraud — as their longest tenured customers expect the most out of them,” according to the report.

When it came to the types of fraud protection solutions consumers were looking for, telco service providers had a variety of options.

Across generations, having the ability to see the ID of callers was nearly universally desired.

“What is more, having the ability to perform a reverse phone number lookup for unknown callers, blocking suspicious numbers and getting protection against spam calls were also popular options, suggesting solutions that address call spam and voice phishing attacks are top of mind for consumers,” the report stated.

Providing free credit monitoring services was more popular among younger cohorts, while having the ability to flag suspicious text messages was not highly prioritised.

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