Key Takeaways:
- Winning the ATO War Without Losing Customers With Dick’s Sporting Goods and Starbucks
- A Clear Picture of Identity… Even When AI Keeps Fogging the Lens
Fraud is evolving faster than ever — are your defenses keeping up? Consumers demand seamless, secure digital experiences — putting immense pressure on merchants to deliver. From account takeovers (ATO) and promotion abuse to friendly fraud and payment scams, these threats lead to chargebacks, profit loss and reputational risk. With bad actors leveraging AI to launch sophisticated attacks, it's time to rethink your approach to digital identity verification and risk management.
At MRC 2026 Vegas, TransUnion® united fraud strategists, data scientists and industry leaders to explore practical solutions for solving these evolving challenges. We shared actionable insights on how top merchants use device intelligence, behavioral analytics and AI-powered fraud detection to outsmart malicious threats.
Key fraud trends impacting retail and commerce
Understanding the current fraud landscape is essential for building effective prevention strategies. In the first half of 2025, 2.6% of all retail industry digital transactions were suspected to be fraudulent, as reported by TransUnion customers.
Three major trends are driving increased fraud activity across retail and ecommerce.
Account takeover
Fraudsters use automation, bots and advanced attack patterns to access accounts and initiate unauthorized transactions. ATO is a persistent and costly threat, with attempts rising globally by 121% between H1 2021 and H1 2025.
AI-enabled fraud
Criminals open fraudulent accounts with stolen, manipulated or synthetic identities. Or target existing accounts, using credential stuffing to rapidly takeover accounts and make unauthorized purchases. Account creation was the highest-risk consumer lifecycle stage for retail in H1 2025, with 18% of account creation transactions suspected digital fraud.
Payment fraud
Bad actors gain access to stolen payment credentials — including credit cards, loyalty rewards, peer-to-peer payment systems and gift cards — through ATO, consumer scams or data breaches to make unauthorized purchases. Credit card fraud was the most frequently reported form of digital fraud in the retail industry by TransUnion customers in H1 2025.
The underlying thread of these fraud trends is identity and how hard it’s become to tell real people from fraudsters.
TransUnion Learnings from MRC 2026
TransUnion showcased innovation, insights and expertise throughout the event.
Winning the ATO War Without Losing Customers
ATO remains one of the most persistent and costly challenges for digital merchants. As adversaries increasingly employ automation, bots and advanced attack patterns, organizations need layered, adaptive authentication strategies that protect customers without derailing their digital journeys.
Kevin Dodson, Director of Loss Prevention at Dick's Sporting Goods; Tom Kelly, Principal Data Scientist at Starbucks; and TransUnion Senior Director of Retail, Ecommerce and Marketplace Strategy Colleen Thiry unpacked how merchants can stay ahead of modern ATO threats while delivering the low-friction, privacy-conscious experiences today's customers expect.
Key Takeaways:
- Loyalty programs are a big target for fraudsters, and device and behavior insights can help mitigate attacks
- Models developed using multiple risk signals and machine learning improve merchants’ ability to catch bad actors
- Behavioral and contextual signals — such as location patterns, device consistency, mouse movements — are an important tool for validating identities
A Clear Picture of Identity… Even When AI Keeps Fogging the Lens
AI is transforming fraud at a rapid pace, empowering merchants with potent new detection and prevention capabilities — while enabling fraudsters to scale and evolve their attacks. Traditional signals are changing, new risks are emerging and merchants are searching for clarity amid growing complexity.
TransUnion’s Colleen Thiry; Brooks Bourland, Senior Director, Head of Data Science Product Development for Fraud; and Brad Daughdrill, Vice President, Head of Data Science Product Development, discussed how AI is reshaping identity, risk and trust.
Key Takeaways:
- AI Is rapidly transforming fraud prevention — Fraud leaders expect major growth in AI/ML adoption over the next two years, nearly tripling according to the ACFE 2024 Anti-Fraud Technology Benchmarking Report.
- A clear view of identity strengthens fraud detection — TransUnion’s unified identity graph integrates device, behavior, phone, document, and identity signals for a clearer, connected risk picture.
- AI agents dramatically improve fraud models — Doubling fraud capture rates and reducing manual reviews by 37% in internal TransUnion analysis demonstrates that continuous learning improves outcomes compared to traditional fraud strategies.
- Behavioral signals are becoming critical as identity insights change — Behavioral data remain unspoofable, providing powerful lift in detecting unfamiliar or fraudulent users. Merchants are excited about the potential to use User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) insights and how behavioral insights can evolve as fraud signals change with AI.
- A layered, multi‑signal fraud strategy is essential — Effective fraud prevention requires identity verification, device intelligence, IP analysis, behavioral modeling, consortium intelligence, and AI/ML models all working together.
How TransUnion helps merchants fight fraud
TransUnion’s approach to fraud prevention centers on building a clear picture of identity by connecting device intelligence, behavioral analytics and other digital data. This multilayered strategy helps merchants detect fraud earlier in the customer journey while also limiting friction for legitimate users — reducing fraud, chargebacks and operational costs.
Digital Insights
Analyze device intelligence, device-to-account linkages and behavior — Digital Insights help uncover fraud early in the consumer lifecycle.
Identity Insights
Verify and resolve consumer identities with high match rates and fewer step-up challenges — Identity Insights help strengthen fraud prevention.
Fraud Analytics
Uncover hidden connections between users, devices and behaviors using purpose-built and custom models — Fraud Analytics increase fraud capture rates while reducing false positives.
Omnichannel Authentication
Assess risks across digital and call center channels by integrating identity, device, phone network and behavioral signals — Omnichannel Authentication helps detect ATO attempts while enabling friction-right experiences.
Lessons from MRC 2026 Vegas
We’re committed to helping you confidently adapt to an environment where identity becomes increasingly dynamic, fraud grows more complex and customer expectations are ever more demanding. During four dynamic days in Las Vegas, merchants shared real-world experiences: what's working, what isn't and where AI is revealing both blind spots and breakthrough opportunities. To improve fraud defenses, TransUnion shared actionable ideas for strengthening layered defenses against AI-enabled threats with a clear picture of identity.
Overcome AI-powered attacks with smarter device intelligence
Learn how TransUnion can help you combat AI-enabled digital treats with real-time insight into device recognition, context and behavior.
