Merchant-Issuer Insight

Transcription

1 Verifi Preventing Fraud with Merchant-Issuer Insight Preventing Fraud with Merchant-Issuer Insight Security, Fraud, and Your Business The payments landscape is evolving at a rapid pace. Merchants must now grow their businesses while keeping safety measures sharply in mind, as many studies indicate a growing risk of fraud is now pervasive in the online marketplace. Increases in regulation and dynamic fraud methods are contributing to many vulnerabilities in card-not-present (CNP) sales channels, which today s fraudsters are sure exploit. For , U.S. merchants reported an 8% increase in the cost per dollar of fraud losses. For every $1.00 lost to fraud, merchants are actually losing $2.40 based on chargeback fees and penalties, as well as a loss of products and services1. In addition, e-commerce merchants experienced an increased rate of fraud up to 9% of total sales and fraud loss increase for m-commerce merchants was up to 12%2. Even though the opportunities for online businesses continue to expand, vulnerabilities in the evergrowing omnichannel of sales outlets also increase. With sales facilitated through a growing variety of payment channels and emerging technologies, U.S. merchants continue to experience losses due to fraud on many fronts, resulting in painful damages to their business revenue and customer trust and loyalty. CNP Merchants Card-not-present merchants are probably hit the hardest. In fact, according to a recent Nilson Report, global losses due to card fraud could exceed $31 billion by Owing to the lack of visibility in the transaction process, CNP merchants are forced to pursue some measure of fraud prevention to protect their bottom line. Developers of fraud prevention solutions are also in a constant state of responding to, more so than anticipating the somewhat radical payments sales channel evolution and the vulnerabilities to fraud that accompany it. 1

2 How Today s Merchants Can Prevent Fraud There are many fraud prevention techniques and solutions available to online merchants. Some of the principle, and often simple, methods to ensure online payment security include: SSL-protected website An SSL-protected website can be recognized by https preceding a website s address, one of the standards of security that consumers have come to count on. Check with your web host about the availability of this important feature. Complex passwords Providing instruction for your customers to use passwords that include uppercase, lowercase, numeric, and a selection of established typographic symbols can help to ensure online account security. Authentication tools Recent development in payment security technologies include EMV, or chip-enabled credit and debit cards (now U.S. standard), biometrics, device fingerprint, tokenization, 3D Secure, and CVV numbers on credit and debit cards to help confirm the identity of the cardholder. Address verification system (AVS) AVS is an anti-fraud tool provided by credit card processing companies that verifies the cardholder s name and address when making a purchase 4. This can help determine possible discrepancies in the billing address and/or shipping address, ensuring the actual cardholder is the person making the transaction. With just one or any combination of these methods, merchants can reduce their fraud rate and protect their revenue and customer loyalty. But at what cost? The management of a multitude of fraud prevention methods can place a tremendous burden on business operations, in the expense of time and financial resources. Optimally, a comprehensive solution package provided and managed by a third party that addresses these and other fraud prevention methods would be best. 2

3 Types of Fraud First-party, or friendly fraud, is a common problem that merchants face. As it has been adopted industry-wide, the term friendly fraud is arguably a misnomer there is nothing friendly about manipulating the system for ill-gotten personal gain. Sometimes, friendly fraud can result from buyer s remorse (the regret quickly following an impulse purchase), a disagreement with the merchant s refund or return policy, or a transaction completed deliberately or inadvertently by a member of the household who is not the approved cardholder. Most common of all is the simple case of not recognizing the merchant details on the cardholder s billing statement. Chargeback fraud is simply an intended act of fraud. This occurs when the cardholder (or credit card thief) abuses the chargeback system to obtain products, services, or refunds for free. Some unscrupulous consumers may even regard this as the de facto method of evading the merchant s legitimate refund or return policy. In any case, once a chargeback has been initiated, a troublesome drain on merchant resources inevitably follows. But that need not be the case. The Why and How of Chargebacks The rules for merchants and banks that have developed into the chargeback process were set up by the U.S. Fair Billing Credit Act of 1974, to enable consumers to defend against unfair credit practices and billing errors. This was established to provide consumers with a sense of security when using their credit cards for purchases of goods and services. If their card were stolen or information defrauded, then they could have recourse to protect their account and not be held responsible for any charges that they did not make. Although chargebacks were established to ensure consumer confidence, throughout time some cardholders have discovered ways to manipulate the system to cheat merchants out of products, services, and unsubstantiated refunds. Once you receive notification of a chargeback, following your customer s contact with their credit card issuing bank to dispute a charge, the pressure is now on you to prove that the charge is valid and that the customer approved the charge. To do this properly, you need to provide solid proof that the cardholder initiated and authorized the transaction. Preparing and taking on the chargeback representment process on your own is not easy. When done incorrectly, the process can be expensive and an exhaust on your time and resources. Before jumping in to respond to a chargeback, it s important to understand the reasons why a customer may file what they believe to be a legitimate dispute. 3

4 Common Dispute Origins Confusion over the charge on the credit card statement This is incredibly common and can be prevented by providing detailed billing descriptors about the details of the transaction. For example, provide information about how and when the item was ordered, or even a more detailed description of the item, such as size or color. Fraudulent charge due to credit card theft The customer s card was stolen and used fraudulently. Usually, the credit card issuing bank will identify this before the customer even finds out about the charge and notify the cardholder. The item was not received A subscription was canceled but the charge continued This can happen when the customer is not fully aware of the subscription cancellation policy and believes they have followed the guidelines, when in fact they haven t. To prevent this from happening, make sure you have clearly documented your subscription cancellation policy as well as your refund/return policy on your website. Chargeback fraud The customer is willingly stealing from you. People are looking for ways to cheat the system, and one way they will do this is by knowingly committing chargeback fraud. With online and mobile sales, items are often shipped and dropped off at the customer s address without a signature of receipt. It s not at all uncommon for the item to be stolen or even left at the wrong address. It is best if you ensure that your delivery service requires a signature upon receipt of the item, as well as making sure that your authorization system prompts the customer to double-check and approve their delivery address. The customer was charged multiple times for the order This can simply be chalked up to human error. Often the charge wasn t processed correctly the first time so it was run again, and then due to a communication error the customer was charged twice for the item. 4

5 Cardholder Confusion and Billing Statement Descriptors As mentioned earlier, one of the most common causes to customerinitiated transaction disputes is due to incomplete or inaccurate billing descriptors. For example, on reviewing their credit card billing statement, your customer may not recognize a purchase under your parent or holding company of U.S. Loom Imports. Your customer may only recall purchasing their garment from your online company, Elite Fashions Online or possibly forgot the transaction entirely. In any case, this type of disparity in billing names is enough to cause your customer frustration and the impulse to contact the issuing bank to initiate a fraud dispute, resulting in a chargeback. Simply providing clear descriptors in your billing statements that are in alignment with your company name can help to prevent such confusion. In addition, clear and concise transaction details need to be included: date and amount of purchase, product dimensions, color, number of units, etc. Of course, clearly providing such extended details may demand overhauling and revising your customer relationship management system (CRM), which could be a very costly and time-consuming process. The Need for Merchant-Issuer Collaboration As CNP sales increase, larger e-commerce companies have been further expanding their service footprint by implementing emerging technologies to provide for their expanding client base. As a result, these growing remote channels are being impacted by fraud on an equally large scale. This clearly indicates a growing need by merchants of all sizes and measure of market penetration to adopt a comprehensive fraud prevention solution. All the while, as the payments landscape is experiencing growth of newly defined channels, very little has been affected in terms of addressing consumer behavior and friendly fraud. Per Verifi s internal research, 86% of the time cardholders will bypass the merchant and go directly to their issuing bank to dispute a transaction. At the time the dispute is started, the issuer typically will not have enough information needed to identify the sale as either fraud or non-fraud. Without that information, the overwhelming likelihood is that a chargeback will be initiated, and your merchant account will be impacted. By sharing detailed order information among all parties including merchant, issuer, and cardholder at the onset of a dispute fraudulent transactions can be greatly reduced, legitimate sales can be validated, merchant profits will be increased, and penalties and fees from unwarranted chargebacks can be mitigated. The time has come: data sharing between merchant and issuer has indeed become a necessity. 5

6 Verifi Preventing Fraud with Merchant-Issuer Insight Necessity Is the Mother of Invention Verifi s Order Insight is a patent-pending platform that allows issuers and merchants to share detailed order information in near real-time at the initiation of a customer dispute. Robust order information includes such details as: Description of good or services, including size, color, quantity Merchant name, address, website, and phone Cardholder transaction history: disputes filed, refunds issued, account delinquency IP address and type of device used for transaction Customers can also have access to their order details through the bank-enabled mobile/online banking application. This detailed transaction information provides immediate answers to customers questions about the transaction for a quick and painless resolution. With this kind of robust information at hand, issuers can quickly determine if a sale should be flagged as fraud or validated as a legitimate transaction preventing costly fees and penalties from an unwarranted chargeback. This can result in increased profits for the merchant, along with improved brand recognition and customer relations. Issuing banks win, too, by saving the time and expense on call center or back office operations required to facilitate the chargeback process. 6

7 The Result of Real Insight By its very definition, merchant-issuer collaboration provides all parties involved in a disputed transaction with the insights needed to resolve the dispute and promote security in an increasingly insecure payments environment. Data sharing can help merchant and issuer alike to identify true fraud and friendly fraud chargebacks. Not only will these insights reduce loss of profits, but they can also help to prevent double refunds perpetrated by fraudsters that have a negative impact on the merchant s bottom line. CNP merchants are vulnerable to chargebacks and card fraud. Many chargebacks can be prevented by sharing the right information at the right time with the right parties. The CNP sales environment continues to grow in complexity fostering the emergence of new payment technologies and regulatory requirements. The challenge to combat fraud and protect brand awareness, customer loyalty, and your revenue streams, need not be a one-person job. In fact, much can be gained by all parties in the e-commerce ecosystem by engaging in a secure and robust data-sharing platform that can assure access to the insights needed to prevent fraud and eliminate the painful chargeback problem. 7

8 About Verifi Verifi is an award-winning provider of end-to-end payment protection and management solutions, founded in 2005 to help merchants effectively manage the payments challenges they face every day. Verifi s full suite of services helps merchants safely process payments, featuring our payment gateway solutions, services to increase billings and keep loyal customers, credit card fraud protection, prevention of chargebacks and resolving costly chargebacks, and facilitating the sharing of transaction details. Our best-in-breed solutions and white glove support are trusted by a wide range of industries, from emerging companies to the Fortune 500. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, we serve more than 25,000 merchant accounts globally for all our products and services. Why Choose Verifi? Partner with Verifi to reduce your payments risks, streamline business processes and lower operational costs. Whether it s stopping fraud, maximizing your billings on our flexible and robust global gateway or our award-winning chargeback prevention and dispute management services, our team of experts and custom solutions will protect your payments and boost your profits across the entire transaction life cycle. Contact Verifi info@verifi.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 8

9 CITATIONS: LexisNexis True Cost of Fraud Study 2 Ibid. 3 Nilson Report Robertson, David. The Nilson Report. Carpenteria, California: HSN Consultants, Inc., Print. # CardFellow.com: Address Verification Service (AVS) 9