Interview

Looking into the near-future: the rise of refund abusers and how to tackle them

Tuesday 28 November 2023 10:31 CET | Editor: Irina Ionescu | Interview

Will Wyatt,Vice President of Global Partnerships at Signifyd, discusses the company’ s latest successful partnerships and delves into the main fraud concerns for merchants in 2024.


Could you provide us with some additional insights into Signifyd and its position within the realm of fraud prevention?

Signifyd is a commerce protection provider working with some of the largest and best-known online merchants in the world, including Walmart, Samsung, Philips, Albertsons, Abercrombie & Fitch, and more. We are one of the few commerce protection providers that offer a financial guarantee against all types of chargebacks, including those resulting from payment fraud and first-party fraud, such as false claims, items not received, or items that were received but do not match their description. 

Signifyd can back its decisions with a guarantee, thanks to the breadth of our commerce network, which consists of of thousands of merchants around the world selling in many retail verticals. Having access to this network provides us with valuable insights into about 600 million digital wallets, which we define as a distinct combination of signals present in an online transaction.

Since Signifyd was founded, we have grown to over 500 employees and added new products along the way. We now provide full protection throughout the entire buying journey, from account creation to checkout, to post-purchase disputes, returns, and refund requests.

In regards to your recent partnership with Adobe Commerce, what advantages does it offer to Adobe Commerce users?

The expansion of the partnership between Adobe Commerce and Signifyd builds a broader, more robust network that provides deeper insights into transaction intelligence needed to protect merchants from fraudulent orders and attacks. The new integration with Adobe Payment Services allows Adobe Commerce and Magento’s open-source customers to deploy Signifyd’s pre-authorisation with a couple of clicks, and take advantage of our issuing partnerships, leveraging our ARO capabilities.

Siloed data has long been a hurdle for payments players looking to have full visibility into the identity and intent behind online transactions. But merchants no longer have to choose between adding friction and barriers to checkout or leaving themselves vulnerable to costly fraud attacks.

What is your outlook on partnerships, and what can we expect in 2024?

Our partner network is critical. We work with major ecommerce players such as Adobe and Shopify, as well as American Express, Visa, and other financial institutions to help them and their customers with integration, security, and scalability. To build upon our existing coverage in the market, we are looking to expand our relationships with issuing banks. We aim to work with the largest issuing banks and processors to reach issuers at scale. Moreover, we are looking to continue developing our relationships with acquirers. 

 

What forthcoming fraud trends should companies be ready for in 2024?

Returns are a strong topic for retailers currently. Realising the costs associated with free returns, retailers are turning to different models to protect their business from consumers and fraudsters taking advantage of them. Where regulations such as PSD2 have been successful in preventing fraudulent activity from happening at the point of checkout or sale, it has fueled a wave of returns fraud. We have noticed a rise in professional refunders popping up, but the issue is driven by regular consumers as well, with item swaps and returns past the return window. 

England-based retailer ASOS is one example. The ecommerce business has been trying to increase its profitability as they found out that 6% of its customers are negatively impacting its profitability, resulting in losses of GBP 100 million, largely on the account of discounts and returns fraud. 

Thus, retailers need to put more emphasis on returns and put systems in place to monitor returns and refunds. This can be supported by Machine Learning solutions like the ones provided by Signifyd to help curb fraud. 


About Will Wyatt

Will Wyatt is currently Vice President of Global Partnerships at Signifyd, overseeing relationships with financial institutions, payment processors, ecommerce platforms, and systems integrators. Will has been in the payments and fraud ecosystem for a decade, coming previously from Ekata, a Mastercard company, where he ran sales and partnerships leading up to their acquisition. Will lives in Seattle with his family, and enjoys skiing in the winter, and golfing in the summer.


About Signifyd 

Signifyd provides an end-to-end commerce protection platform that leverages its commerce network to maximise conversion, automate customer experience, and eliminate fraud and consumer abuse risk for retailers. Its solutions provide the transparency and control that brands need to succeed in the rapidly changing world of commerce. Signifyd, which is the leading provider of payment security and fraud prevention for the Top 1000 Retailers for 2023, is headquartered in California, with locations in Seattle, Denver, New York, Mexico City, São Paulo, Belfast, and London.


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Keywords: ecommerce, shopping, online shopping, fraud detection, online fraud, marketplace, retail, payments , refund, refund fraud, spam and abuse, chargebacks, machine learning, friendly fraud
Categories: Fraud & Financial Crime
Companies: Signifyd
Countries: World
This article is part of category

Fraud & Financial Crime

Signifyd

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