Fraud is a service.

One industry expert says it's on the rise.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Lili Jamali.

Whether it's for travel, meals, or event tickets, it's hard to deny the alert of a good deal.

Being discounts through fraudulent means is a thriving business online.

Once mostly relegated to the far reaches of the dark web, fraudsters are now offering questionable

deals to consumers on mainstream social media sites and messaging apps.

That's according to the online fraud prevention company, SIFT.

Part of the scam is what are called account takeovers or ATOs, which Brittany Allen, a trust

in safety architect with SIFT, says, are increasing.

We're finding that you could pretty much call 2023 the year of ATOs because we saw

ATO attacks jump over 350% year over year in Q2 of 2023.

Those are attempts that we've seen.

So someone using stolen password and email address combinations or password and username

combinations to attempt to enter an account.

So that means that they already have that data on hand and they're just trying to see

where it works online.

When do you think there is such a surge in these account takeover attempts right now?

We saw some of the surges in prior years tied to specific events like the pandemic.

So we saw spikes in the targeting of hotel accounts or airline accounts.

Fraudsters knew they wouldn't get caught there if they went in and saw what the bounces

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