What you need to know before outsourcing your holiday fraud screening

Fraud threats increase along with online shopping during the holidays, and many e-retailers face the choice of declining possibly good orders or approving suspicious ones. Here are some considerations when thinking about outsourcing some or all of your manual reviews.

The holiday shopping rush isn’t just for busy consumers, it’s also a time when fraud attempts spike against online retailers. As many as 43% of CNP orders during the holidays are fraud attempts, according to the LexisNexis 2017 True Cost of Fraud Study.

And as organized crime gets better at beating basic fraud-screening procedures, merchants seem to face a choice: Risk losing good customers by automatically declining more orders or risk slowing down fulfillment by manually reviewing more orders. However, merchants can also opt for more manual review and outsource it to a third-party fraud prevention service. The cost can be well worth the savings in staff time, lost sales, and fraud costs.

Even if your customers aren't official VIPs, they must be treated with courtesy and care.

When to consider outsourcing your peak-season manual fraud screening

Is working with an outside fraud-prevention provider worth considering for this holiday season? It might be, if any of the following are true for your business.

• Your internal fraud team has concerns about fraud protection during peaks. [read more]
• You’ve experienced order-decision bottlenecks during past sales peaks. [read more]
• You’ve suffered higher fraud losses during past sales peaks. [read more]
• Your false decline rate has increased during sales peaks. [read more]
• You have VIP and social-media influencer clients [read more]

What to look for in a manual fraud-screening service

If any of these situations are familiar to you—or if you want to turn over the responsibility of manual screening to someone else—it’s time to consider outsourcing during the holiday sales season. To get the most benefit from this decision, there are a few things to consider before you choose a manual review provider. - [read more]