Reducing eCommerce Fraud for Retailers

Currently, an eCommerce merchant is typically not notified about a fraudulent purchase for three to six weeks after the transaction has been completed. This is a significant amount of time, and it often causes those merchants to lose out on a great deal of money.

In an attempt to combat this problem, Visa has teamed up with Ethoca to create a fraud monitoring program that alerts eCommerce merchants in close to real time. Store owners will be notified so they can hold up the shipment or fulfillment of a transaction which usually takes place within 24-72 hours of when the order was placed.

This program will only be available for eCommerce stores in Brazil and the United States at this time, but Visa's research suggests it will save over $300 million in fraud losses annually.

"We are excited about this new layer of security that we hope will make a real difference in an online merchant's fraud losses," said Silvio Tavares, global head of information products at Visa. "Our relationship with Ethoca is another way that we are responsibly using our network intelligence and fraud information to deliver valuable services to merchants."

Online sales revenues are expected to climb to $370 billion by 2017, with many shoppers now resorting to online purchases for convenience. This growth is sure to create more fraud, so fraud monitoring programs like this will only grow in demand.