Friendly Fraud Archives – Forter

During Forter’s Next in Commerce four-part webinar series, we’ve highlighted the growing challenge of returns abuse and the importance of delivering customers a flexible and seamless returns experience. After showcasing merchant and consumer survey data, hearing from a Forter customer, and getting insight from a trusted partner, the series culminated in a demo of Forter’s Returns Abuse Protection, where viewers could see the solution in action.

What Tools are Merchants Using Today?

Before getting into the demo, we went over some of the common ways merchants mitigate returns abuse today, and why these methods are not delivering the best results.

• Manual Review or Fraud Teams – This approach uses teams of manual reviewers to analyze transactions, behavior, and account data in order to blacklist those users who are abusing the returns policy. However, this process is incredibly resource intensive and cannot easily detect savvy abusers who are trying to conceal their identity and abusive behaviors.
• Rules-Based Tools – These tools use rules to flag or block users who meet a certain criteria. However, abusers can often get around these rules by simply using a different payment method or changing their email address. Additionally, these tools may inadvertently block legitimate users as well, resulting in poor customer experience.
• Restricting Programs/Policies – Many merchants cut back or eliminate parts of their returns offerings in order to protect their business from abuse. However, this hurts a brand’s most loyal customers, who were enjoying the flexible returns policies as they were intended to be used.

Forter’s Returns Abuse Protection Solution

Forter’s Returns Abuse Protection Solution consists of four important components that enable merchants to successfully mitigate returns abuse, while maintaining a seamless customer experience.

1. Tailoring To A Merchant’s Business Policies – Forter works hand in hand with each merchant to tailor the solution to their business needs.
2. Identifying Returns Abusers – Forter’s platform then identifies returns abusers, even when they’re attempting to hide their identity.
3. Enforcing Returns Policies with Real-Time Decisions – Forter provides real-time decisions at any touch point (i.e. at purchase, at returns initiation, etc.) so merchants can effectively enforce their business policies.
4. Identifying Returns Abusers & Flagging Abusive Accounts – Forter flags abusive accounts with a recommended action, so merchants can also enforce their policies at an account level.

Why Forter?

Unlike many of the traditional methods for stopping returns abuse, Forter is able to accurately identify abusers and enable merchants to effectively enforce their returns policies by leveraging:

• Real-time decisioning across the entire user journey.
• Its Global Merchant Network that aggregates data across leading global enterprises and over 620+ million users.
• Identity linking technology to uncover hidden connections between digital identities, even when there are no shared data points.
• Decisions, not scores, so merchants can receive actionable decisions in real-time to maximize efficiency and overall customer experience.

The Solution in Action

In order to showcase Forter’s Returns Abuse Solution, we put together a demo, highlighting how the solution works in real-time on a live e-commerce website. Mock consumers can interact on the demo site and all activity is reflected in real-time in the Forter portal. Users are able to see the returns abuse protection solution in action, with live decisions for each activity showcased in the demo.

To see the full demonstration, request a live demo here to learn more about how Forter’s solution could help your organization mitigate returns abuse now.