‘Twas Days after Black Friday…

by Guest Contributor 2 min read December 7, 2015

Customer Experience during the holiday shopping season

customer experience black fridayDuring the holidays, consumers transact at a much greater rate than any other time of the year. Many risk-management departments respond by loosening the reins on their decision engines to improve the customer experience — and to ensure that this spike does not trigger a response that would impede a holiday shopper’s desire to grab one more stocking stuffer or a gift for a last-minute guest.

As a result, it also is the busy season for fraudsters, and they use this act of goodwill toward your customers to improve their criminal enterprise. Ultimately, you are tasked with providing a great customer experience to your real customers while eliminating any synthetic ones.

Recent data breaches resulted in large quantities of personally identifiable information that thieves can use to create synthetic identities being published on the Dark Web. As this data is related to real consumers, it can be difficult for your identity-authentication solution to determine that these identities have been compromised or fabricated, enabling fraudsters to open accounts with your organization.

Experian’s Identity Element Network™ can help you determine when synthetic identities are at work within your business. It evaluates nearly 300 data-element combinations to determine if certain elements appear in cyberspace frequently or are being used in combination with data not consistent with your customer’s identity. This proven resource helps you manage fraud across the Customer Life Cycle and hinder the damage that identity thieves cause. Identity Element Network examines a vast attribute repository that grows by more than 2 million transactions each day, revealing up-to-date fraud threats associated with inconsistent or high-risk use of personal identity elements. Our goal is to provide the comfort of knowing that you are transacting with your real customers.

Don’t get left in the cold this holiday season — fraudsters are looking for opportunities to take advantage of you and your customers. Contact your Experian account executive to learn how Identity Element Network can help make sure you are not letting fraudsters exploit the customer experience intended for your real customers.

Learn more about the delicate balance between customer and criminal by viewing our fraud e-book.

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