February 15, 2008
Stolen credit cards are increasingly being used to make small transactions in on-line payment facilities to test if the card is yet listed as stolen. This fraud is growing at an alarming rate, escalating the cost of on-line business.
Skunkworks Australia has now released a Telephony Validation system that marries the shopper to an identifiable telephone number, thereby immediately removing the shopper anonymity.
Skunkworks' Bill Oborn says "Stolen credit card testing is a fast growing problem, particularly from fraudulent overseas shoppers."
"The cost of bogus transactions, refunds and chargeback fees are just the tip of the iceberg, the hidden costs are also in dealing with the fraud once you've been stung and then trying to work out how to prevent it recurring" he said.
"Any on-line payment facility is vulnerable, in some cases aggressive fraudulent activity has driven on-line shops to cease operations altogether."
"Our Telephony Validation system allows on-line merchants to get back to focusing on growing their business".
How it works: During an on-line web purchase the system calls the shopper and collects confirmation on the shopper agreeing to terms and conditions while also taking their audio voice print. The process also associates an identifiable telephone number with the shopper.
Without anonymity the fraudulent activity ceases, or more likely moves onto other on-line payment facilities that don't have such deterrents.
The Skunkworks Telephony Validation system is immediately available as a hosted service set up in a matter of minutes or as a turnkey system installed into the merchant's environment.