Online Personals Watch: News on the Online Dating Industry and Business

Two IDEA Analyses :: Fraud Detection And UGC Review

OPW - May 15 - Please see the attached two analyses on Fraud Detection and User Generated Content review services that are in use by the dating industry.

For Fraud Detection, we took a look at, and recommend you take a look at: Kount, iovation, Sift Science, and ThreatMetrix.

For UGC Review, we identified the following companies that were serving the dating industry: Besedo, Crisp Thinking, Crowd Flower, Foiwe, Scamalytics, SightEngine and WebPurify.

ALL media is biased. But, GOOD media will tell you exactly where they are biased. We are biased with Kount, Besedo, Scamalytics and WebPurify. We have been retained by them in the past for help getting the word out to the dating industry.

Besedo and Scamalytics will both be attending the June 12-13th iDate in Los Angeles, so you can catch them there, btw. See you there hopefully.

• Download "Fraud detection solutions for the online dating industry" analysis
• Download "User generated content moderation solutions for the online dating industry" analysis

Post by Mark Brooks, CEO IDEA

Everyth1ng Y0u Kn0w Ab0ut P@ssw0rds 1s Wr0ng

KOUNT BLOG - Sep 12 - The long-accepted norm that strong passwords require a mix of letters, numbers, and special characters has been challenged by Bill Burr, a 72-year-old former manager at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He and other researchers now suggest to use the longest word or phrase you can remember, even if it’s understandable or comprehensible. The reason is that the advances in computing power have made it easier for hackers to try millions of combinations in very little time. Thus, shorter words or phrases provide fewer combinations for these bot attacks to run through before "cracking the code." The phrase "CorrectHorseBatteryStaple" would take 550 years for a computer to compromise. On the other hand, a unique spelling of the word "troubadour" with a couple of unique characters appended at the end (i.e., Tr0ub4dor&3) would require only 3 days to crack due to its shorter length. Also having word phrases that are more easily remembered makes it much easier for consumers to use a different password for every account, which at the end of the day, is the most critical aspect of password security.

See full article at Kount blog

See all posts on Kount

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

GPS Spoofing Is Used By Fraudsters

KOUNT BLOG - Nov 21 - Back in 2013, University of Texas researchers tricked the navigation system of an $80M yacht and sent the ship off course in an experiment that showed how any device with civilian GPS technology is vulnerable to a practice called "GPS spoofing". Fraudsters saw this technology as an opportunity. These days tech savvy users are finding ways to use spoofing apps. On Facebook, spoofing makes it possible to check in at places without being there. Tinder paid feature lets members change their GPS location to increase the probability of a match outside their actual location. So how does spoofing relate to eCommerce fraud? Ghana, Nigeria and Vietnam are countries on the high-risk lists for most fraud screeners. With GPS spoofing software, a fraudster anywhere in the world can place online orders using the stolen identity of an unsuspecting cardholder residing in Ashtabula, Ohio. Sadly, it's becoming easier by the day to spoof the location of a mobile phone. Kount's product suite includes protections against the growing GPS spoofing threat.

See full article at Kount blog

See all posts on Kount

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

The State Of Mobile For Online Dating Merchants: Infographic

KOUNT BLOG - Dec 7 - It's great to see how you compare to your online dating peers, especially when it comes to mobile payments and fraud. Kount's 2017 Mobile Payments and Fraud Report shares insight from over 800 merchant respondents. Check out this infographic and see how your peers feel about the current state of mobile payments & fraud.

The full article was originally published at Kount Blog, but is no longer available.

See all posts on Kount

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Chargeback Statistics

KOUNT - Nov 9 - With card-not-present (CNP) fraud soaring 40% in 2016, chargebacks are top-of-mind for every online business. 86% of chargebacks may be cases of friendly fraud. Friendly fraud increased 41% over the past two years. CNP fraud losses will reach $7.2 billion by 2020. 8 in 10 customers admit to filing a chargeback instead of working out issues directly with a seller.

The full article was originally published at Kount Blog, but is no longer available.

See all posts on Kount

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Live Webinar: Online Dating. Building Trust in a Personal World

OPW - Nov 9 - Please join me on Tuesday (Nov 14th) 2pm EST for a special presentation covering Internet dating trends, building consumer confidence, an overview of the latest fraudster tactics and prevention strategies.
__

Attend this webinar to hear from industry experts about the current state of online dating, projections as we move into 2018 and the critical role that fraud has on brand image and consumer trust. Topics:

• 2018 trends in online dating
• Building consumer trust in online dating
• Tactics and techniques fraudsters are using
• Prevention strategies for online dating companies looking to protect their users

GOOD FOR:
Risk, Fraud, eCommerce, Payments, Finance, Operations, IT, Customer Support, or anyone working with online and mobile payments for online dating merchants

RSVP here

Post by Mark Brooks @ Courtland Brooks

The Return Of The Chatbots

KOUNT BLOG - Oct 25 - Chatbots combine Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, and natural-language processing to handle routine customer inquires quickly and accurately. Chatbots are still evolving, which can result in humorous exchanges between humans and machines. Unfortunately, there is a less humorous side to chatbots, including exposing organizations to new and unusual fraud attacks. One hacker recently gained access to hundreds of companies through their help desks. In this case, he was a bug bounty hunter seeking cash rewards for penetrating supposedly secure corporate systems. As of September 10, the bug was still out there and the vulnerability still existed. That's quite concerning when you consider that 80% of ~800 IT decision makers recently surveyed said they are already using chatbots or planning to implement them by 2020.

The full article was originally published at Kount Blog, but is no longer available.

See all posts on Kount

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Mobile Fraud On The Rise

KOUNT BLOG - Oct 20 - In the Mobile Payments & Fraud: 2017 Report, ~40% of merchants surveyed reported that mobile channel fraud had increased, up from 23% who said so in 2015. Further, more than 1 in 5 (21.3%) thought that mobile fraud was increasing at a faster pace than mobile sales in general, while ~8% said mobile fraud was decreasing in relation to mobile sales. Merchants pointed the finger at browser-based mobile, providing the following responses when asked to "name the mobile payment system at greatest risk for fraud":

• 59.8% browser-based
• 24.7% mobile app
• 13.7% contactless

The full article was originally published at Kount Blog, but is no longer available.

See all posts on Kount

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Fraud :: The Bane Of The Dating Industry

OPW - Sep 30 - We work so hard to make our dating sites fulfill their promise to users. Then they occasionally get hit by scammers, spammers, the obscene and the obnoxious. It's at least horribly annoying and can be downright life threatening in extreme cases.

Generally speaking we have three lines of defense:

1. Automatic review - think A.I.
2. Manual review - real people in customer service, abuse teams and user-generated content review.
3. User-flagging - but this is really a last line of defense. It's a shame when it gets this far really.

Next week on Wednesday, there's a panel on fraud detection that I'd urge as many of you as possible attend. The line up of panel members is quite stellar, and I'm hoping the audience will contribute some insights as well.

Wayne May from Scam Survivors will represent insights from scam victims. Besedo has served Match Group (for 5 years) and the dating industry and now offers a combination solution of A.I. and manual moderation. They're sending their machine learning implementation manager to talk to us. Professor Monica Whitty brings us the perspective of academia. Scamalytics serves White Label Dating and others and Dave Wiseman will give us some of their observations from their considerable experience in the dating industry.

Let's see if we can raise the collective bar on how we deal with rogue actors on dating sites, in 2017-2018.

(Full Disclosure: Besedo and Kount are current clients of Courtland Brooks and Scamalytics is a former client)

See all posts on Besedo
See all posts on Kount

Post by Mark Brooks @ Courtland Brooks

This Tuesday 2pm EST - Special Webinar On Fraud, By Kount & Online Personals Watch

OPW - Aug 6 - With the recent data breaches of several online dating sites and millions of credit card numbers and personal information being released, your company's fraud strategy will likely be tested. Join us for a 30-minute discussion where we'll cover fraud prevention strategies and technologies specific to the online dating space. Sign up here. It's free.

Post by Mark Brooks @ Courtland Brooks