‘Tis the season for fraud, which means that criminals are increasing their efforts to take advantage of cardholders, retailers, and consumers through scams such as account take-overs, probing activity, and phone spoofing. Retailers are one and a half times more vulnerable to consumer chargeback between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Chargebacks act as a form of consumer protection to offer remedy to individuals who have experienced identity theft, merchant errors or unethical business practices. Retailers can minimize the risk of chargebacks by implementing the correct fraud prevention methods before chargebacks hit.
Fraud affects us all
All industries are at risk for fraud during this time of the year. For example, the hospitality sector experiences an increase in fraudulent activity during the holiday season. A recent example that hit close to home included a stay at The Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza Hotel, while attending the 2015 NASTD Annual Conference and Technology Showcase. This annual conference brings together the top State government technology leaders and their technology partners, where security issues were a key topic of discussion. Shortly after our stay, we received an email notifying us that hackers had compromised the hotel payment systems, obtaining customer’s card numbers, security codes, and names. Ouch!
No one is safe from fraudulent activity - it can happen to anyone at any time whether you are a consumer, enterprise organization or State agency.
None of us want to be caught in the web of fraud, and we don’t want any of our customers caught in this web either. Fortunately, we have the power to impact that change.
Cover all the bases
No amount of security is too much security when it comes keeping your consumer’s data safe. Once a modern criminal tricks their way past your security safeguards and gains access to an account, private consumer data is at their disposal. This is considered catching fraud downstream, after the event occurs.
However, many organizations miss the mark on catching, stopping, and managing fraud activities upstream - before the fraud occurs. This time of the year, when personal defenses may be down as more frequent holiday activities occur, is a critical time to understand the differences between fraud prevention tactics.
With an effective solution in place, situations like this can be avoided.
5 tips to prepare and combat fraud during this vulnerable time of year:
- Profile your existing customer base. Take into account how well you know your customers and their associated behavior. In doing so, you can identify good transactions as opposed to bad ones so risks can be recognized and mitigated as they arise.
- Use real-time fraud analytics and upstream prevention tools to add speed and sophistication to fraud detection.
- Obtain access to global fraud intelligence, which allows you to stay on top of and respond to the rapidly changing patterns of fraud.
- Implement a secure omni-channel environment for payments and fraud management. We have seen an increase in cross-channel fraud that highlights the importance of implementing a bulletproof omni-channel fraud strategy.
- Invest in a multi-layered detection tool. Our Adaptive Fraud Prevention solution allows you to detect and take action against suspicious upstream activity in the IVR in real time - before attacks, account takeovers, and other suspicious activities occur. That means you have greater control before customers are victimized by fraudulent activity that impacts their impression of security and confidence in your organization.
Don’t let the Grinch of fraud affect your holiday cheer, take action now to prevent your organization’s data from being compromised.
