Business is always changing; unfortunately, fraudsters are constantly adapting to keep up. A perfect example of this is a new trend that has cost customers and taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars in recent years – fake accounts.
Fake accounts are one of the fastest-growing types of business fraud, fueled by a perfect storm of social, financial and technological factors. To help you learn how to keep this new breed of fraudster out of your business, we are hosting a complimentary webinar called, The Power of Customer Data Validation in Preventing Fraud, on February 28, 2023, at 11 am PST/2pm EST on how to understand and combat new account fraud.
Hosted by Rob Manser, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Service Objects, and a veteran of over 20 years of marketing, operational and data quality expertise, this webinar will teach you how automated data quality tools can stop fake customers and fraudulent accounts in their tracks. Here is a quick look at the backstory behind this webinar.
The growth of new account fraud
According to Bank Info Security, over half of new accounts in the United States are now fraudulent. New account fraud (also known as first-person fraud) grew over 100% in 2021, rising to become one of the top-growing forms of fraud in the United States and around the world.
Why is this happening? A confluence of factors, ranging from new benefit programs and incentives to pressures for new firms to show rapid customer growth – fueled by technology, in a world where nearly everything is done online. Here are just a few examples:
- Pandemic relief programs were rife with fraud. Funds were dispersed quickly, people used fake names to get benefits, prisoners became involved despite being ineligible recipients, and even internal employees got involved in scamming benefits. According to the US Department of Labor, an estimated US $163 billion was lost to fraud in uninsurance benefits and PPP loans alone.
- JPMorgan Chase recently shuttered its newly acquired consumer college funding platform Frank, with a purchase price of $175 million dollars, after discovering that over 80% of the customers in its database were allegedly fake.
- Banks are often victimized by bogus accounts that appear legitimate at first, build up a track record of activity, and then “bust out” and leave the financial institution holding the bag with credit losses.
Perhaps the most important thing to remember about account fraud, however, is that it is largely detectable and preventable.
How we can help
The growth of fake customer accounts is much more than a scary new trend in business fraud: it is also proof that maintaining genuine and accurate customer contact data is no longer a luxury but a necessity, no matter what size your business. New account fraud may be growing, but with the right technology it is now possible, in real-time, to validate for real people.
Service Objects’ flagship customer contact data validation services are engineered from the ground up to ensure that your customers or prospects are accurate, genuine and up to date. Our DOTS Lead Validation service checks your inbound contact data for legitimacy against authoritative global contact data. Our lead verification service helps prevent bogus accounts from being created at the outset, preventing costly resource drain and saving hits to your bottom line and reputation. Moreover, our lead verification service is easily implemented in most current CRM or business automation platforms, using convenient API interfaces.
This free webinar is the first step to implementing your business’ fraud solution – click here to register, or contact us for a complimentary no-pressure product demonstration, along with available free trial licenses and expert implementation assistance. Join us and learn what we can do together to protect your business from the latest generations of scammers.
