Fraud has changed. Has your strategy?

Fraud prevention used to be easier to define. Spot the suspicious transaction. Block the bad actor. Protect the business.

But modern fraud is no longer that simple.

That was the focus of Ecommpay’s recent discussion with the Merchant Risk Council, Why human-centric fraud needs a new response. The session brought together Willem Wellinghoff, Chief Compliance Officer and UK Chair at Ecommpay; Adam Sherlock, Fraud and Payments Manager at FitFlop; Emma Lindley, Chief Development Officer at Accertify; and Chloe Coleman, CEO at Vouchsafe.

Together, they explored one of the biggest challenges facing merchants today: fraud is becoming more human, more organised and harder to detect. And that means traditional responses are starting to fall short.

Fraud has changed. It is no longer just a systems problem. Increasingly, it is a human one.

Modern fraud does not always arrive with obvious red flags.

It can involve social engineering, synthetic identities, account takeover, manipulated behaviour and organised criminal networks that know how to work around standard checks. Increasingly, fraudsters are not just exploiting systems. They are exploiting trust.

That creates a real challenge for merchants. A transaction can look normal at the point of payment, even when the wider behaviour tells a very different story. A customer can pass one check, but still be part of a bigger pattern of risk.

For merchants, the challenge is not simply spotting fraud. It is spotting fraud without treating every genuine customer like a threat.

Automation is essential in fraud prevention. No merchant can manually review every transaction, identity signal or risk event at scale.

But the discussion also explored the limits of relying too heavily on black-box systems. When fraud tools make decisions without clear visibility, merchants can struggle to understand why customers are being challenged, why transactions are being declined or where risk is really entering the business.

That matters because fraud prevention is not only about stopping fraud. It is also about protecting conversion, customer experience and trust.

The strongest strategies are not built on heavier controls at every stage. They are built on better context, better data and more intelligent decision-making.

One of the strongest themes from the discussion was the need to look beyond individual transactions.

Fraud does not happen in isolation. It sits across the customer journey, from account creation and identity verification to checkout, payment approval, fulfilment and post-purchase behaviour.

That means merchants need a joined-up view. Payment data, fraud signals, identity checks and operational insight all have a role to play. When these signals work together, merchants can make more confident decisions without adding unnecessary friction for genuine customers.

For merchants, this balance is critical. Stronger protection should not come at the cost of lost sales, abandoned baskets or damaged customer trust.

The conversation made one thing clear: fraud prevention needs to evolve with the threat.

Rules still matter. Automation still matters. But merchants also need transparency, context and the ability to adapt as fraud changes. That means understanding where current systems are falling short, where good customers are being affected and where stronger checks can have the biggest impact.

It also means treating fraud prevention as a business-critical function, not a back-office control. Fraud strategy affects approval rates, revenue, chargebacks, operational workload and customer trust.

In other words, fraud prevention is not separate from growth. It is part of it.

For merchants reviewing their fraud strategy, the next step is not simply to add more tools or tighten every rule. It is to ask better questions.

Where is fraud really entering the business? Which customer journeys carry the highest risk? Where are genuine customers being challenged unnecessarily? How much visibility does the business have over fraud decisions? And are existing systems helping teams understand risk, or simply making decisions on their behalf?

Ecommpay’s latest white paper, Beyond the Black Box, explores why merchants need a more transparent, human-centric approach to fraud prevention, and how businesses can reduce risk without adding unnecessary friction.

This discussion is part of Ecommpay’s wider Beyond the Black Box fraud series.