News & Views

Forter Loyalty Program Protection

Loyalty programs have grown steadily in the last decade, and consumers have accumulated $48 trillion of unspent loyalty points globally.  With nearly half (45%) of loyalty program accounts being inactive, and consumers not tracking or redeeming points there has been an increase in attacks on loyalty programs.

To combat this rise of attacks, e-commerce and fraud prevention specialists, Forter (www.forter.com) is launching the Forter Loyalty Program Protection solution  (www.forter.com/loyalty-program-protection) to protect high value rewards programs from fraud and abuse, enabling merchants to offer enhanced programs with the best possible customer experience.

“The combination of consumers not paying attention to their accounts and merchant lack of preparation is a big reason fraudsters find loyalty and rewards programs so alluring.  It is clear that loyalty program accounts are low hanging fruit for fraudsters,” explains Michael Reitblat, CEO and Co-Founder of Forter.

“Loyalty program points are a currency as valuable and untraceable as cash, and fraudulent activity in these accounts causes damage to brand reputation and monetary losses to merchants and consumers alike.”

Cyber criminals take advantage of loyalty programs in several ways. The most significant attacks include: Account takeover whereby fraudsters hack into member accounts, exploiting accumulated points and payment instruments saved in the account; New account fraud where fraudsters create fake accounts, often using stolen identities, and use them to accumulate, store, sell, and redeem stolen points; and Policy abuse: Consumers overshare coupons or promotional codes, violating merchant policies and illegitimately gaining program rewards.  

“Merchants need to fight fraud together.  Forter’s Loyalty Program protection solution gives merchants the only fully integrated fraud protection platform that protects 100% of the customer journey, not only at the point of transaction,” says Reitblat.

As Doug Ferreira, Director, Financial Operations, at www.delivery.com explains, “Our loyalty program allows us to thank our customers by rewarding them with better benefits and a better experience while also enabling us to stay ahead of the competition.  Features like ‘Tell-a-friend,’ rewarding customers for referrals, are extremely popular, but are also a target for fraudsters and bad actors.  Forter has helped us reduce loyalty program fraud by more than 60% while we build stronger relationships with our customers.”

Forter’s Loyalty Program Protection solution is an integrated fraud prevention platform that protects loyalty programs from all types of fraud and abuse, including transactional fraud, account-based fraud, and policy abuse.

IT