Incognia Mobile App Fraud Insights Report Reveals Food Delivery Apps are Major Target for Location-Based Fraud

With millions of food delivery app users worldwide, data shows high volume of location spoofing on driver apps resulting in fraud losses

Palo Alto, CA -- August 30, 2022 -- Mobile identity pioneer Incognia today announced the publication of the results of their first Mobile App Fraud Insights Report – Food Delivery. The study was conducted to assess the state of fraud in food delivery mobile apps. The results highlight a high volume of location spoofing on food delivery driver apps, and show a significant percentage of devices are registering multiple accounts on both driver and consumer apps, indicating drivers and users who are abusing promotional offers.  

The usage and adoption of food delivery has accelerated in the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and has fundamentally changed how we put food on our plates. The availability of user-friendly apps for consumers, and tech-enabled driver apps has enabled the food delivery market to grow three-fold since 2017 to a global market size of $150 billion. 

The Incognia Mobile App Fraud Insights Report shares data and insights from the Incognia network on new types of fraud that are emerging on food delivery driver apps, and that are adding fraud losses and eating into profits. Drivers spoofing their location to “game” the driver app platforms to steal the orders, increase their ride volume, pick the best routes, and qualify for premier driver status, are just some of the current and most frequent fraud schemes. In addition, there is a significant percentage of devices registering multiple accounts both on the driver apps and consumers apps, indicating drivers and users who are abusing promotional offers. 

“While food delivery apps have skyrocketed in popularity, fraudsters are manipulating food delivery driver apps with location-related fraud tactics,” said André Ferraz, founder and CEO of Incognia. “Fraudsters are using location spoofing to accept deliveries from busy locations, charge for deliveries that were not made, and report longer rides. The implementation of location intelligence in the mobile apps can verify a driver’s real-time location and detect location spoofing, to prevent location-based fraud.”

The following location and device intelligence was detected by Incognia for food delivery apps. 

 

Key insights include:

  • 11.9M location events classified as GPS Spoofing on food delivery apps
  • 80K devices generating locations with GPS Spoofing on food delivery apps
  • Rate of location spoofing on food delivery driver apps is 6.5 times higher than other types of apps
  • 2.6% percentage of devices registering multiple driver accounts
  • 1.9% percentage of devices registering multiple consumer accounts

To read the full report and analysis please download the Incognia Mobile App Fraud Insights Report - Food Delivery.

In support of trust and safety, Incognia is offering a complimentary location spoofing audit to any company offering location-based services via a mobile app. Sign up for a complimentary Location Spoofing Audit to get an assessment of how much location spoofing is happening in your app. 

 

About Incognia

Incognia is a privacy-first location identity company that provides frictionless mobile identity and authentication solutions for fraud prevention and trust and safety. Deployed in over 400 million devices, Incognia delivers a highly precise risk signal with extremely low false-positive rates to banks, fintech, delivery, social, gaming and mCommerce companies, for lower fraud losses, increased mobile revenue and to support trust and safety for users. Incognia’s award-winning technology uses location signals and motion sensors to silently recognize trusted users based on their unique behavior patterns and is a key enabler for zero-factor authentication. 

Incognia is privately held and headquartered in Palo Alto, California with teams in New York and Brazil.

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