Rich people love digital shoplifting

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Here’s an alarming trend: Well-off Americans, defined as someone earning $100K annually, are more likely to steal from online merchants than the poor.

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It’s not a small number, either. In a survey of 2,000 well-off Americans, 55% of Gen Z and 49% of Millennials admitted to first-party fraud in the past year, per antifraud tech company Socure.

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Online merchants are susceptible to several forms of first-party fraud, commonly called ‘friendly fraud,’ such as when users claim package theft or that a transaction was made on their credit card without authorization. In many ways, digital shoplifting is more straightforward than stealing from brick-and-mortar stores.

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With businesses losing $100 billion annually to ‘friendly fraud,’ it seems some consumers are redefining theft as a cost of doing business. 46% say they see their actions as consumer advocacy, and 63% of first-party fraud offenders say that large retailers can afford to cover the cost of disputed legitimate claims.