Silverguard published today (12) the second edition of its annual study “Scams with Pix in Brazil”, in which it analyzes the main fraud trends involving the payment method. The study found that Pix has the highest losses due to scams in the country, reaching R$25.5 billion in the last 12 months. This value places Brazil's automatic payment method as the most profitable for cybercriminals, with losses exceeding cell phone robbery and theft, R$22.8 billion, and credit card scams, with R$18.3 billion. .
According to Pix Operations Manager at Bacen, Carlos Brandt, the evidence of how Pix has become the main target of fraudsters is in the number of procedures opened in the Special Return Mechanism (MED), used to request the return of an inappropriate payment. from Pix. In 2023 alone, 2.5 million MEDs were opened across the country.
“It is worth noting that this number does not reflect the total amount of fraud with Pix in Brazil, as MED is still a little-known method and used by people deceived by scammers. Therefore, one of the main focuses in Pix's operational department is to continue expanding the possibilities to combat these frauds”, explains Brandt, during a webinar to present the report.
The information also shows that 8 out of 10 scams with Pix start through Meta channels, especially WhatsApp (39%), Instagram (22.6%) and Facebook (17.7%). The CEO and Founder of Silverguard, Márcia Netto, also reinforces that fraudulent purchases over the web remained the biggest fraud method this year, accounting for 44.9% of incidents.
X-ray of scammers
To respond to this challenging context, the study prepared an analysis of the profile of scammers who started using Pix as their main transfer channel. Today, fraudsters diversify their activities between large criminal organizations, with cutting-edge technology to promote large scams, and individual scammers, who use means of social engineering and Fraud as a Service (FaaS) to generate their profits.
As explained by the CEO and Founder of Silverguard, Márcia Netto, stratifying these criminal profiles can help the financial market to establish coordinated measures against fraud on Pix. This is done by expanding awareness campaigns, as well as blocking bank accounts as a preventive measure against fraud. The CEO also defends greater dissemination of resources such as MED to respond to fraud situations.
“Pix is not the villain, but it helped accelerate the growth of digital scams in Brazil. Therefore, if we speed up the reporting to the destination bank, the chance of returning the money to the victim increases greatly, in addition to reducing reputational, legal and regulatory risks, with fewer scams and MEDs”, concludes the executive.
The payment method is also a constant target of data leaks, through the loss of Pix keys under the care of financial institutions. This week, the 16th incident of this type was recorded in 2024, with information linked to 644 leaked Caixa Econômica Federal keys.
