Fraud in online purchases

One of the most challenging aspects of managing on-line retail fraud is understanding the buyer-side of a transaction: Is the person a legitimate customer or a fraudulent buyer? The cost of not clearly discerning the answer to this question can be catastrophic. Last year, fraud totaled $3.6 billion according to an estimate published in the Cybersource 9th annual online fraud report. In addition to the monetary cost, there is potential to damage brand and reputation. Online merchants regularly fall prey to online fraud in spite of using commonly available fraud prevention tools including:

• Address verification services such as AVS
• Credit card verification systems such as CVV
• Credit card authorization from the associations

These tools provide some protection, but they fail to provide the essential protection needed to prevent online fraud today. The fraud landscape has become much more sophisticated and organized since the introduction of these first generation tools. Today’s fraud, for example, takes advantage of standard-issue consumer and business technology to facilitate remote attacks across multiple continents. Is your business ready to defend against this new wave of fraud?

ThreatMetrix helps you meet today’s fraud challenges and those of tomorrow

To be prepared for the new wave of fraud, you must know with certainty the identity and location of your buyers. You need to extend your perimeter defense with a new outer layer that will keep criminals out:

1) Buyer Identity – ThreatMetrix generates device identifiers (or device fingerprints) based on real-time data to help you identify genuine buyers. The device identifiers are uniquely assigned to every computer that transacts on a merchant’s site and allows for easy transaction monitoring and fraud prevention. Similar to a person’s fingerprint, a device’s fingerprint can be used to track computers that have been involved in fraudulent activity; and hence, it serves as the closest possible proxy to identifying the buyer.

2) Buyer Location – ThreatMetrix determines the buyer’s true location by analyzing the IP address – even when the buyer tries to hide their location with an IP address proxy service, ThreatMetrix deploys strong technology that pierces through the proxy and reveals the definitive location of the buyer.

3) Perimeter Defense - ThreatMetrix maintains the largest commercially available database of fraud and hacker information to help you quickly identify whether the computer used in a transaction has been compromised. With over 10 million pieces of information you get worldwide protection.