Last week, we had the first Fraud Fighters Forum meetup of the year. WePay hosted the night, and we had RSVPs from 55 fraud analysts and risk professionals, across a diverse set of industries – including e-commerce, rental marketplaces, social networks, software, travel, and gaming. Attendees brought with them tales of the unique but often overlapping challenges of operating online.
Our wonderful Forum leaders led an excellent discussion, dividing attendees into 3 discussion groups, focused on 3 key areas. Here are some of the takeaways:
1. Tips for fighting chargebacks
- Get to the point. Long explanations to the bank about why the chargeback is wrong are not needed or wanted. Just share the facts as clearly and succinctly has possible.
- Set clear expectations and deliverables with the buyer. For example, what is the service or product being fulfilled and what is the refund policy?
- Save your receipts! It sounds basic, but save as much correspondence and details about the transaction as possible to boost your case.
2. Building fraud processes, either in-house or with third party tools
- Depending on the size of the company and its focus on fraud and abuse, most companies have their own admin/inhouse tool and augment this tool with 3rd party tools.
- Most teams use 4+ independent tools to make a decision on an account.
- It’s unrealistic to think that 1 tool will contain all the info needed to make a decision.
- It would be ideal to have one tool that can at least provides links to other tools, to make it easier for analysts to make the best decision possible.
- Industry gap – there’s not a good way for these multiple tools to talk with each other, so the only person/thing that sees the whole picture is the analyst. Thus, the system cannot learn very easily from all these inputs and get smarter over time.
3. Compliance tips for knowing your customer (KYC)
- Issue – KYC is a challenge especially when it comes to verifying users outside of the US. The data you can ask for to verify identity is limited.
- There are companies that can help decipher KYC requirements by country, such as this one from PWC.
- Work with your legal team to determine the exact requirements as it pertains to your business. Most requirements are quite loose/can be interpreted in several different ways.
Perhaps more invaluable, however, is learning that no matter the industry, the business model, or location, fraud fighters are dealing with the same challenges. Sharing best practices leverages the network effect to increase efficiency, and we love facilitating this kind of rising-tide-lifts-all-boats opportunity. Also, taking the time to celebrate these folks that are committed to maintaining an excellent customer experience and fighting the good fight is our kind of Tuesday night!