Visa’s Commitment to Secure Transactions: The Payments Giant is Tackling Scams Head-On

Credit cards extend many conveniences to businesses and consumers. For starters, cards are easily transportable. Even the heaviest cards only weigh in at approximately 22 grams — or about the same as an alkaline AA battery. Credit cards are also sized to easily fit most clothing pockets and wallets. 

But that’s only addressing their physical attributes. Credit cards also help shoppers buy things today and pay for them later. And card rewards allow shoppers to earn discounts on their purchases or earn points they can exchange for merchandise or travel perks.

Credit cards can have their drawbacks as well. Bad actors can commit credit card fraud by stealing card information from cardholders, issuers, and merchants and using that data to make unauthorized purchases. Payment scams are a significant problem in the U.S. where 62 million Americans were victims of card fraud in 2024. 

Recent data from the Federal Trade Commission reveals that consumers lost in excess of $12.5 billion to fraud of any type in 2024, and credit card fraud was the most widely reported type of payment fraud for the year.

Loss due to fraud in 2024 saw a 25% increase over 2023.

Card network Visa, which circulates 1.3 billion credit cards worldwide — or 37% of all credit cards in circulation, isn’t idly standing by while fraud runs rampant. The company has unveiled a new practice — known as Visa Scam Disruption  — that focuses on identifying complex scams and stopping them as they emerge.

“Visa has invested over $12 billion dollars in technology over the last five years, including to reduce fraud and enhance network security,” Paul Fabara, Visa’s Chief Risk and Client Services Officer, said in a press release.

“At the same time, we have made a significant investment in our best weapon against scammers: our people,” Fabara continued. “By combining our proprietary technology with the unique experiences and perspective our talent brings, we can more effectively identify and defeat even the savviest scammers.”

The Visa Scam Disruption team is off to a fast start. In 2024, the department prevented in excess of $350 million of attempted fraud. The Visa Scam Disruption group is protecting customers by employing a multipronged approach to combatting scams:

• Proactive Scam Investigations: The team leverages multiple tactics to uncover scams before they can financially harm customers. Stopping scams before they get off the ground also saves merchants time and money spent in managing contested transactions from customers.
• Scam Detection and Disruption: Visa didn’t become one of the largest payment companies in the world without making use of cutting-edge technologies. The Visa Scam Disruption team incorporates the use of generative artificial intelligence tools to analyze large amounts of data and detect scams.
• Strategic Partnerships: Once Visa identifies a scam, it partners with law enforcement agencies, financial institutions, and other partners to meet its objective of thwarting current scams and preventing criminals from carrying out further fraudulent actions.
• Scam Intelligence: Visa has built a fraud-fighting team that includes artificial intelligence developers and engineers. The Visa Scam Disruption department also recruits military professionals and individuals who formerly worked in law enforcement.

The Federal Trade Commission’s data reveals that credit card fraud caused $275 million in losses during 2024. Visa’s efforts to stop fraud are a step in the right direction, but one company can’t eradicate scams from the face of the earth without help. 

Michael Jabbara, a Senior Vice President and Global Head of Fraud Services with Visa, commented on Visa’s collaborative approach in the company’s recent press release. 

“These scams directly impact the lives of victims, sometimes with devastating effects,” Jabbara said. “Visa also collaborates with intelligence partners, law enforcement, and industry working groups to ensure that not only do we shut these scammers down, but the other members of the ecosystem are also equipped to spot red flags on their own.”

Though scams can damage consumers and credit card companies, merchants also pay a price when a criminal successfully completes a fraudulent transaction. A recent study estimates that a fraudulent $100 sale can cost a merchant more than $230. 

We caught up with Alexander Hall, Trust and Safety Architect with Sift, to understand his thoughts on the threat of fraud in 2025.

“Fraud has become much more accessible — it no longer requires experience and advanced tech skills to participate in cybercrime,” Hall told us. “Now, anyone with an internet connection can easily purchase stolen credit card numbers, along with the tools and instructions to commit fraud on their own and at scale.”

As companies such as Visa combat fraud with innovative technologies, criminals are also making use of emerging innovations to complete unauthorized transactions. Hall told us that scammers can test cards through multiple small-value transactions, and they can use bots to determine whether a stolen card’s data is active.

Merchants may have to monitor thousands of data points for suspicious activity, which can be a time-consuming and expensive process.

“Fraudsters are getting smarter, faster, and more stealth at their attacks,” Hall told us. “Fraud prevention systems that use advanced machine learning models and customer identity insights to block suspicious activity and reduce friction for legitimate users are essential to keeping both businesses and consumers safe.”

But merchants that are struggling to reduce fraud can rest a little easier knowing that the Visa Scam Disruption group can build on its 2024 successes to stop scams before they start.