Efficient and secure eCommerce Merchant Accounts are critical during our present crisis.
The Coronavirus pandemic has dramatically changed consumer behavior. With lockdowns and social distancing orders in place across the country, eCommerce, once just another option for consumers and businesses to buy goods, has become an absolute necessity for everyday life in the current health crisis.
More than ever before, consumers are having to rely on their mobile and laptop devices to order household necessities, takeout food, groceries, and movies they could have otherwise seen at a movie theatre a couple of months ago.
Immediacy is the name of the game, as many items ordered are those that are ridiculously scarce or equally pricey. Patience is as limited as the time consumers are willing to wait for these necessities.
With many brick and mortar businesses having to shut their doors for the foreseeable future, many have needed to pivot their client facing business models to offering their services online.
Fraudsters Cashing In On The Crisis
When it comes to ensuring that customers experience a seamless buying journey, merchants are faced with many obstacles. Without question, the merchant’s primary responsibility is to ensure that all online transactions remain secure. However, it does not end there. The other side of the coin is that this secure transaction must also be easy, seamless, and without any friction.
This is a difficult balance to achieve in normal circumstances, let alone during a time of a pandemic. With a flood of consumers moving their dining, shopping, working, and leisure online, due to COVID-19, merchants need to take a hard look at implementing fraud prevention. With this sudden surge of online transactions, neglecting this critical action will result in an upswing of “bad actors” attacking unsuspecting customers.
Fraudsters are now using tools and artificial intelligence (AI) technology that has seen a tremendous advancement and sophistication in the last ten years. In their current attempts at fraud, these con artists have mastered the ability to seek out a charitable donation, a professional audit, or even a bank inquiry. Over a decade ago, fraudsters sought after stealing card numbers, now they are after taking over entire accounts.
Gary Sevounts, Senior Executive of Kount, a fraud management platform, had this to say about fighting fraud:
“The way to address these things is always through layered defense. You have to really look through the whole digital transaction life cycle because, oftentimes, the fraud starts with account takeover because through massive data breaches that have happened and are still happening now, there are billions of usernames and passwords that are out there on the dark web and in the open market.”
Luckily, there are now tools that can both spot and stop fraud in its tracks as the technology has also greatly improved.
Kount is a fraud management tool that maintains a “depth and breadth of data”, artificial intelligence, and machine learning capabilities to separate customers from speculators. It keeps sellers in line and confirms the identity of the buyers.
Prepare For The Worst
The tide of fraudulent behavior is certainly coming. Merchants need to implement layered defenses so that they are not overtaken. It is also critical to ensure that your eCommerce Merchant account is equipped in mitigating any fraudulent behavior from the start.