By Melody Lashmar - Issue 4: merchants must bear the responsibility for addressing this fraud as there is no incentive for anyone else in the chain of the transaction to take corrective action.
It is time for the regulators and card associations to return some balance to the networks. If the card associations and regulators can tout setting chargeback ratios and penalties for...
By Melody Lashmar - Issue 3: Online purchasing is targeted by fraudsters with computer programs to find and use card numbers.
By Melody Lashmar - Issue 2: Consumers lie and steal at a rate that easily surpasses the restrictions for fraud placed on merchant accounts.
By Melody Lashmar - Over the last few months I have been investigating and writing about consumer initiated fraud. I have been defining the issue, giving recent examples of the issue, providing data about the issue and demonstrating that it is a known issue and has been for quite sometime.
Along with providing to you a solid foundation of understanding regarding the issue of...
March has arrived and that means St. Patrick's Day is right around the corner. Although St. Paddy's Day is in its essence a religious holiday, it's also a great excuse to eat, drink and be merry...all of which I will be doing on Sunday, March 17th. My dad's grandparents were Irish, so I'm pretty sure that makes me 99% Irish. Or maybe it's 12%? It doesn't matter. I'm 100% Irish...
This past year I had the good fortune to participate in a day of education related to credit card fraud: how it happens and how we can reduce it. I was delighted to see this article that shows one such credit card ring getting eliminated. One of the key points to this setup is to note the length of time and the depth of detail that has gone into this fraud ring. These people are...
Wow, January flew by in a blur of trade shows, meetings and flagrant disregard for healthy sleeping habits. That is to say, it was a productive month! February is shaping up to be another busy month already, and with only 28 days the pressure is on to not let Viggo Mortensen's rugged good looks and southern charm derail our road to recovery...I'm sorry, that's the subplot to that...
By Melody Lashmar - Another mention of consumer initiated fraud was found in this paper published by the Philadelphia Fed http://www.philadelphiafed.org/consumer-credit-and-payments/payment-cards-center/publications/discussion-papers/2002/fraudmanagement_042002.pdf, In November 2001, The Philadelphia Federal Reserve office hosted a workshop on fraud management in the credit card...
By Melody Lashmar - In my search for any indication that someone has investigated this problem of Consumer Initiated Fraud, I came across a survey that was published in the Journal of Marketing in October 1978. The title of this publication is "Fraudulent Behavior of Consumers. The other side of fraud in the marketplace: consumer-initiated fraud against a business." This survey...
