The next-generation of fraud prevention: Fraud.net

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - R. Buckminster Fuller

In conversation with the Founder

What made you set-up Fraud.net?
I ran several large online merchants prior to founding Fraud.net. While at MotherNature.com, we experienced quite a bit of online payment fraud, despite using the leading technologies and methods at the time. We realized that we, as merchants, shouldered all the losses so it was up to us merchants to control the problem. As a result, we got a pool of online retailers together to share fraud data, and only then were we able to cut our collective fraud losses by two-thirds. It was a very important revelation for all participants, after which we made the collaborative pool available to an ever-growing number of merchants and have never looked back.

How do you feel being the founder of a new company?
Do you feel that being new to the market poses more benefits or challenges or both? I believe that a new company always has a lot more flexibility. And in our case, it has been a huge benefit. Being able to employ the latest technology, as opposed to competitors’ outdated systems, is critical since many fraudsters are also very technologically advanced. But we’re still here primarily to facilitate the exchange of fraud information among merchants.

How are your Products and Solutions designed to cater to the needs of varying clientele?
We have several types of merchants that benefit from the service, each with different risk sets and different data available to them for decision-making. Virtual merchants selling downloadable goods have different requirements than merchants shipping physical goods, which are, in turn, different from those facilitating online payments. Our focus is preventing all forms of online payment fraud and the best solution to this huge and rapidly-evolving problem stems from the merchants themselves. Our service is a collective intelligence solution which builds on the experience of each to combat fraud as a whole.

How do you identify and approach your potential clients?
All of our clients are online merchants since, in the online environment, the merchant is held responsible for all fraud-related losses. We are an enterprise software company helping large merchants mainly, but as fraudsters tend to hone their skills on the smaller, relatively defenseless, merchants we also feel compelled to offer this group a similar level of protection to keep the problem from growing faster than it already is.

What is Fraud.net’s aim behind Device Detection, Risk Scoring, and Transaction Analysis?
Online merchants, especially virtual goods and service purveyors, don’t have as much information available to them to assess transaction risk as traditional brick-and-mortar stores. So we have developed a comprehensive suite of services to minimize the inherent risks. We provide device detection and identity verification as part of a full suite of protection for them. We analyze over 5,000 variables to detect potential threats and to calculate transactional risk levels, all in only a few hundred milliseconds.

How has your journey at Fraud.net been so far?
I have always been fascinated by using large-scale, real-time data to solve big client problems. In this case, we combine huge amounts of collaborative data with predictive modeling to find new fraud events and patterns. We are constantly testing and improving systems so our clients can build exceptionally efficient operations. While our systems make recommendations, we allow clients to manage their settings to customize their risk management programs. Our goal is to reduce fraud as well as to free up our clients’ time and resources and dedicate it to growing their businesses. It is a great example of cloud-based technology giving merchants the power to effortlessly reduce risk and pinpoint opportunities.

Knowing the Key Executive
Whitney Anderson Co-Founder
Launched the first company dedicated to reducing online payment fraud by crowdsourcing fraudulent transaction information from a wide variety of e-merchants. By working together and sharing fraud data among e-commerce, i-gaming, digital product and online financial companies, Fraud.net has substantially improved fraud detection rates and stemmed losses for its hundreds of participants. Achieved sector leadership in real-time collaboration, rapid machine learning and advanced fraud analytics. Pursuing goal of eliminating the majority of the $15+ billion annual cost to U.S. merchants due to online payment fraud.

Advantage Fraud- Client Testimonials
“Since implementing Fraud.net, we’ve seen our fraud rates reduced by almost 50%”.
REBECCA BOLDIN- iMed.com

“Fraud.net’s order profiles have allowed us to drastically reduce our manual review processing times”.
KEVIN CHO- Vitamin Warehouse

“I’ve been waiting for a service like this one to come to market. It makes perfect sense”.
DAN KREBS- GreenMarket.com

“We help to create a safer internet for everyone by enabling merchants to securely and anonymously share fraud data with other merchants in real-time”