First-party fraud, disputes filed by the actual cardholder rather than a thief, now puts $132 billion of e-commerce revenue at risk, according to Sift’s Q4 2025 Digital Trust Index, drawing on an October 2025 survey of 1,075 US adults. That risk figure sits on top of a category that grew from 15% to 36% of all reported global fraud in a single year. The data below breaks down who is doing it, where they are learning it, and what happens once a dispute is filed.
How big is the first-party fraud problem in 2026?
First-party fraud is now the largest single category of human-initiated fraud worldwide. LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ 2025 Cybercrime Report, based on analysis of more than 104 billion global transactions processed in 2024, found it accounted for 36% of all reported fraud that year, up from 15% in 2023, ahead of account takeover fraud (27%) and scams or authorized push payment fraud (11%). Sift’s Q4 2025 Digital Trust Index separately puts a dollar figure on the exposure: $132 billion of e-commerce revenue at risk.
That risk is not evenly spread. First-party fraud covers three overlapping behaviors: friendly fraud chargebacks on legitimate purchases, false claims that an order never arrived, and misrepresented information on credit or buy-now-pay-later applications. LexisNexis flags buy-now-pay-later providers, financial institutions, and communications, mobile, and media companies as the categories most exposed.
| Fraud type (share of global fraud, 2024) | Share | Source |
|---|---|---|
| First-party fraud | 36% | LexisNexis Risk Solutions, 2025 |
| Account takeover fraud | 27% | LexisNexis Risk Solutions, 2025 |
| Scams / authorized push payment fraud | 11% | LexisNexis Risk Solutions, 2025 |
| Other fraud types | 26% | LexisNexis Risk Solutions, 2025 |
Figure 1: First-party fraud is now the largest category of human-initiated fraud globally, ahead of account takeover and scams. Source: LexisNexis Risk Solutions, 2025 Cybercrime Report, analysis of 104 billion+ global transactions from 2024.
A category that grew 21 percentage points in one year is not a rounding error in a fraud budget. It is the line item most likely to be out of date if a merchant’s risk model was last updated before 2025.
How many shoppers admit to committing friendly fraud?
A meaningful share of shoppers say, in their own words, that they have done it. Sift’s October 2025 survey of 1,075 US adults found 16% admit filing a false dispute despite being satisfied with the purchase, and 10% admit trying some form of refund manipulation tactic themselves. A further 20% say they would consider using such a tactic during financial hardship, and 22% say they have come across an online tutorial explaining how to do it.
Figure 2: Self-reported exposure to and use of first-party fraud tactics among US adults. Source: Sift, Q4 2025 Digital Trust Index, October 2025 consumer survey (n=1,075).
These numbers describe intent as much as action. Financial strain is the connective thread: 20% saying they would use a tactic under hardship is a larger group than the 16% who admit they already have, which suggests the behavior is likely to grow with economic pressure rather than shrink.
Where are shoppers learning refund fraud tactics?
Social platforms, not word of mouth, are now the main channel. Sift found 22% of surveyed shoppers have encountered an online tutorial on getting an unauthorized refund, and among that group, TikTok accounted for 34% of exposure and Facebook 29%, with the remaining 37% spread across other platforms not individually broken out in the report.
Figure 3: Platform breakdown among the 22% of shoppers who say they have encountered a refund-manipulation tutorial. Source: Sift, Q4 2025 Digital Trust Index.
A shopper following a scripted “refund hack” rarely starts by contacting the merchant. The more common path runs straight from a social feed to a bank dispute:
Figure 4: How a social-media refund tutorial can route around the merchant entirely when the return policy is hard to find. Source: synthesized from Sift’s Q4 2025 tutorial-exposure and dispute-trigger data above.
A visible, easy-to-find policy will not stop a shopper who is determined to abuse it, but it removes the excuse the other 78% who have not seen a tutorial would otherwise have for going straight to their bank.
Which purchase categories see the most first-party fraud?
Two categories stand well above the rest. Sift’s data ties 26% of first-party misuse to groceries and 20% to digital subscriptions, both purchase types defined by frequency and recurring billing, exactly the conditions the report links to financial strain. Clothing and home goods also rank among the most disputed categories, though Sift does not disclose an exact share for either.
| Category | Share tied to first-party misuse | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Groceries | 26% | Sift, Q4 2025 Digital Trust Index |
| Digital subscriptions | 20% | Sift, Q4 2025 Digital Trust Index |
| Clothing | Not disclosed (ranks among most disputed) | Sift, Q4 2025 Digital Trust Index |
| Home goods | Not disclosed (ranks among most disputed) | Sift, Q4 2025 Digital Trust Index |
Subscription billing is the category where a merchant has the most direct control. A recurring charge a customer forgot they authorized is the single most common trigger for a first-party dispute, and a refund policy generator that spells out the cancellation window, the billing descriptor, and how to request a refund in plain language gives a subscription business the documentation to resolve that confusion before it reaches a bank.
Grocery and subscription disputes rarely start as fraud in the traditional sense. Most start as a shopper who does not recognize a charge, and only becomes a fraud statistic once nobody explains it to them in time.
Is first-party fraud growing, or is detection just improving?
Both factors are in play, but the underlying volume is genuinely rising, not just better measured. LexisNexis’s 104-billion-transaction dataset shows first-party fraud’s share of all reported fraud climbing from 15% in 2023 to 36% in 2024, and Sift’s Q4 2025 report cites one forecast projecting a further 40% rise in first-party fraud by 2026, alongside global chargeback volumes reaching 337 million transactions. That chargeback-volume figure is a forecast, not a measured outcome, and should be treated as such until reported year-end data confirms it.
Figure 5: First-party fraud’s share of all reported global fraud more than doubled in one year. Source: LexisNexis Risk Solutions, 2025 Cybercrime Report.
For the full breakdown of what share of chargebacks specifically get attributed to friendly fraud, and why merchant and card-network estimates disagree so sharply, see our chargeback statistics for 2026 and our dedicated look at what percentage of chargebacks are friendly fraud. Industry-by-industry chargeback benchmarks, a natural next step for sizing this risk against a specific vertical, are still being compiled for a future post in this series.
Figure 6: Milestones in first-party fraud measurement, 2023 through the 2026 forecast. Sources: LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Sift Digital Trust Index.
What happens to merchants and consumers after a first-party fraud dispute?
Filing a dispute does not end the story for the consumer, and it rarely ends cheaply for the merchant. Sift found 24% of consumers who filed a dispute went on to experience additional fraud afterward, most commonly payment fraud (52% of that group), scams (51%), and account takeover (29%). Separately, 62% of consumers say they would be less likely, or would stop entirely, to shop with a brand after experiencing fraud, regardless of who was ultimately responsible for it.
Figure 7: Consumers who experience one fraud incident are exposed to a second one at a high rate, often payment fraud or a scam. Source: Sift, Q4 2025 Digital Trust Index.
A dispute a merchant never sees coming still costs them a customer relationship. The 62% brand-abandonment figure applies whether the merchant caused the original fraud, got caught in the middle of it, or was simply the business processing the disputed charge.
Merchants are not standing still on this. Visa’s own published overview of friendly fraud notes that in some industry surveys, more than half of merchants already call first-party misuse their primary dispute challenge, and nearly 90% of enterprise merchants now use Visa’s compelling-evidence framework to contest disputes they believe are invalid rather than accepting every chargeback at face value.
The Bottom Line
First-party fraud is no longer a rounding error next to stolen-card fraud, it is the largest category of fraud in the world, and Sift now prices the e-commerce exposure at $132 billion. A meaningful share of that risk traces to shoppers who freely admit what they are doing, learned it from a TikTok or Facebook tutorial, and target recurring, frequent purchases like groceries and subscriptions where a forgotten or unclear charge is easiest to dispute. None of that means every first-party dispute is malicious. Most start as confusion a clear policy could have resolved, which is the one part of this problem a merchant fully controls: a visible, plain-language refund policy that states the billing descriptor, the cancellation window, and how to get help before a shopper’s next move is their bank instead of you.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is first-party fraud? First-party fraud is when the person who made a purchase, not a stranger with a stolen card, disputes it anyway. LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ 2025 Cybercrime Report found it made up 36% of all reported global fraud in 2024, up from 15% in 2023, based on analysis of more than 104 billion transactions.
How many shoppers admit to committing friendly fraud? 16% of US adults admit filing a false dispute despite being satisfied with the purchase, and 10% admit trying a refund manipulation tactic themselves, according to Sift’s October 2025 survey of 1,075 US adults. A further 20% say they would use such a tactic during financial hardship.
Where do shoppers learn refund fraud tactics? 22% of surveyed shoppers say they have encountered an online tutorial on getting an unauthorized refund, most commonly on TikTok (34% of that group) and Facebook (29%), per Sift’s Q4 2025 Digital Trust Index.
What happens to shoppers after they file a first-party fraud dispute? 24% of consumers who filed a dispute went on to experience additional fraud afterward, most often payment fraud (52%), scams (51%), or account takeover (29%), according to Sift’s Q4 2025 report. Separately, 62% of consumers say they would be less likely to shop with a brand again after experiencing fraud.
Sources and References
- Sift. (2025). “Q4 2025 Digital Trust Index: Dispute & Chargeback Data and Insights.” Includes an October 2025 consumer survey, n=1,075 US adults, conducted by Researchscape International.
- LexisNexis Risk Solutions. (2025). “Cybercrime Report.” Analysis of 104 billion+ global transactions, January-December 2024.
- Visa. “Friendly Fraud Explained: Prevention and Solutions.” Compelling Evidence framework adoption data.
Note: All figures verified as of September 2026. First-party fraud shares and platform-exposure figures shift with each quarterly and annual report cycle, so headline figures in this article are refreshed at least twice a year.
