Nets blocks clickbait traps and unsolicited recurring payments worth €1.9m, reducing card disputes by up to 20%.
Nets, the Nordic digital payments specialist, today announces the roll out of a managed service for banks across the Nordics that aims to protect consumers by preventing potentially fraudulent transactions from occurring online.
The service is designed to mitigate two high growth instances of online fraud: ‘too good to be true’ clickbait offers and unsolicited direct debits, and works by continuously analysing data collected from card disputes to proactively identify and block transaction requests between consumers and fraudulent merchants. Nets applies human verification at every stage of the process to mitigate against ‘false positives’ (where a consumer payment to a legitimate merchant is blocked), in order to protect the end-user’s smooth service experience.
“We estimate that up to 25% of all card disputes raised in the Nordics can be attributed to clickbait offers and fraudulent recurring payments,” comments Judith Thrane, SVP Fraud & Dispute, Nets. “Precise figures are hard to come by, since many occurrences are never reported. Clickbait transactions entice consumers to part with very small amounts which consumers can easily overlook or class as too insignificant to report to their bank or the police. Unsolicited recurring payments operate in a similar way, if the consumer does spot the regular payment many will simply cancel it without raising an official complaint. Our preventative fraud service aims to stop these initiatives in their tracks, saving Nordic consumers time, money and disruption to their digital commerce experience.”
Look out for clickbait offers
Clickbait offers work by never sending the goods that have been promised, for an example, a new iPhone advertised on Facebook for $1. Unsolicited direct debits are set up when a consumer believes that they are making a one-off payment. In this case, the goods are usually shipped, but provisions for a direct debit are hidden in small print in the terms and conditions of purchase. Both these types of fraud fall into a grey area, as the consumer has voluntarily provided their payment details to the merchant.
Immediate effects of service in Norway
Nets soft-launched the service in Norway in 2016 with 100 clients, including Sparebank1, to investigate whether card disputes would decrease under these conditions. Over 31,000 potentially fraudulent transactions totaling €1,893,433.75 were declined in just four months, and card disputes fell dramatically, by approximately 20%. Thanks to its success the service is being made available from today in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden.
As these merchants are constantly changing their name, acquirer, and other identifiers to avoid detection, Nets analysis is continuous.