Fraud Prevention in the Contact Center

The recent data breach at Equifax probably got your attention. Now what can you do about it? Data breaches are not new to enterprises, governments, and individuals – but the impacts are getting further and deeper for all their victims. One way to attack the attackers is through stronger analytics and actions in your contact center. Here’s why it’s important to do so…

In part one of this adaptive fraud prevention blog series, we revealed that one in 360 (1/360) calls are fraudulent and an alarming 25% of those fraudulent calls lead to the successful compromise of accounts. We also noted that 70% of call center fraud is committed by repeat offenders, according to Gartner.

As consumers continue to ditch their landlines in favor of mobile phones and less expensive voice over IP (VOIP) connections, fraudsters are finding new ways to exploit telephony technology for maximum financial gain.

In the first post in this series about the rise of the modern fraudster, we explored how cybercriminals – the twenty-first century’s version of bank robbers – are continually looking for new opportunities to part consumers from their cash and credit.

As financial institutions layer on more security to prevent cyberattacks and online fraud, the criminals have begun looking for new ways to earn their dubious livings. In this post, we’ll explore the ways fraudsters are using call centers and self-service customer support technology to score.

Frank Abagnale spoke at this year’s EBT Next Generation Conference about Identity theft, and had two sound pieces of advice for everyone.  The first is to follow the money. The second is to think outside the box.

Who is Frank Abagnale and why should we listen to him?

Frank Abagnale was the subject of the movie Catch Me If You Can, and famously scammed the banks with check cashing schemes while also impersonating an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer. He has since become an authority on identity theft working for the FBI for 40 years, and writing several books on identity theft, including Stealing Your Life in 2007. 

When it comes to financial crime, most of us still have a quaint, old-fashioned mental image of the traditional bank robber. A group of shady-looking men would arrive in a getaway car and empty the safe. It was easy to see them coming, and when they left, we knew they were gone. They even looked like we expected: dark clothes, masks and weapons drawn.  If only fraudsters fit that classic stereotype.

Three out of four consumers have changed their behavior due to the threat of cyber crime. Fraudsters will fear-monger by any means necessary: pop-up alerts, loud threats, and deceitful warnings. They will do anything to trick an alarmed user into falling for the con. Whether you are a business, government agency, enterprise, or financial service, you are all at risk.

While there are a lot of eyes and ears on cyber security, whose watching out for the contact centers? Recently, an owner of a local café in New London, Connecticut was a victim of phone fraud. The owner got a call from a man purportedly from his utility company threatening to shut off the restaurant's power if he didn't pay a past-due bill within 45 minutes.