TransUnion Report Shows Fraud Attacks on Financial Industry Call Centers Rising
06 November 2023 - 2:00PM
At a time when commerce is increasingly conducted digitally,
consumers still expect and rely on call centers to deliver timely
and trustworthy customer service when they need it. However,
according to a new TransUnion (NYSE:TRU) report, these call centers
have increasingly become a target for fraud, leading to a
complicated balancing act of delivering efficient service and
maintaining customer account security.
The new TransUnion report featured findings from its recent 2023
State of Omnichannel Authentication survey of call center
organizations to determine how organizational leaders across
industries apply authentication to improve customer experience and
fraud mitigation.
The survey found that more than half of respondents say that
fraud attacks on call centers are on the rise, based on growth from
2021 to 2022, with financial industry respondents noting an even
more acute increase, with a full 90% of respondents indicating at
least some observable growth in attacks. One in five respondents
from the financial industry indicated that attacks were up more
than 80% over the survey period.
Change in call center fraud attacks
2021–2022
|
Financial Industry |
All |
Decreased |
0% |
9% |
Stayed about the same |
10% |
41% |
Increased 0%-10% |
10% |
19% |
Increased 11%-25% |
30% |
14% |
Increased 26%-50% |
20% |
9% |
Increased 51%-75% |
10% |
3% |
Increased 76%-100% |
10% |
3% |
Increased 100%+ |
10% |
2% |
“Through the use of tactics such as spoofed phone numbers and
social engineering, combined with personal information obtained
from identity theft scams and data breaches, fraudsters have become
more focused on call centers as a target to access and take over
accounts (ATO),” said Lance Hood, senior director of omnichannel
authentication at TransUnion. “More than ever, it’s critically
important for call centers to find effective and efficient ways to
separate legitimate callers from potentially fraudulent, high-risk
ones in a way that reduces friction for the consumer.”
The report also shows that nearly two-thirds of financial
industry respondents indicated that most account takeovers start in
the call center. Because identity fraud in financial services, such
as account takeover or synthetic identities, results in direct
financial crime, the financial industry has an even more pronounced
incentive to guard against fraud in call centers, but in a way that
is as efficient as possible for financial services organizations
and their customers.
The survey showed that, for call center organizations operating
in the financial industry, 90% of respondents indicated that new
technologies for fraud detection should be seamless or invisible
for customers when calling. This is up from 76% for all respondents
who answered the question. Similarly, 70% of respondents from the
financial industry believe these technologies must provide
authentication accuracy, while 80% believe these technologies
should support the authentication of legitimate callers and detect
risky callers.
The report highlighted the need to stop fraudsters before they
can reach and socially engineer contact center agents or probe
vulnerabilities within the Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
systems. Nearly two-thirds of financial industry respondents and
70% of survey respondents overall would like authentication to
begin before any agent interaction occurs. For example, the use of
technologies that will match unknown callers to the client Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) can ultimately reduce the need for
further agent authentication. Another example of this technology in
action could be found in a pre-answer risk assessment, which can
help better determine if a call is being spoofed or virtualized,
the most common techniques used by fraudsters when calling into a
call center.
Implementing effective call inspection technologies such as
these would allow call center professionals to focus on providing
customer service rather than interrogating peoples’ identities and
at the same time, being less vulnerable to social engineering.
Accordingly, callers could have their needs addressed more quickly
and with less time spent on Knowledge-Based Authentication (KBA)
questions and other forms of unnecessary friction.
“The implementation of end-to-end call inspection authentication
enhancements by call center organizations, through the use of
solutions such as TruValidate, can help in the delivery of more
secure and efficient experiences while protecting the call center,”
said Hood. “Identifying potential fraudsters before they have a
chance to connect with a call center agent reduces risk, allows for
the agents to spend more time helping customers and less time
verifying a caller is legitimate, and also allows more of an
organization’s fraud-fighting resources to be targeted to those
calls that are truly risky.”
TransUnion TruValidate™ orchestrates identity, device and phone
call insights to help organizations interact with legitimate
consumers while mitigating fraud risk. To learn more about how
TruValidate can help organizations engage consumers with
confidence, both digitally and by phone, click here.
TransUnion conducted an online survey in the summer of 2023
among contact center operations, customer experience, or
information technology professionals. The primary markets
represented by respondents were technology and financial
services.
About TransUnion (NYSE:TRU)
TransUnion is a global information and insights company with
over 12,000 associates operating in more than 30 countries. We make
trust possible by ensuring each person is reliably represented in
the marketplace. We do this with a Tru™ picture of each person: an
actionable view of consumers, stewarded with care. Through our
acquisitions and technology investments we have developed
innovative solutions that extend beyond our strong foundation in
core credit into areas such as marketing, fraud, risk and advanced
analytics. As a result, consumers and businesses can transact with
confidence and achieve great things. We call this Information for
Good®—and it leads to economic opportunity, great experiences and
personal empowerment for millions of people around the
world. http://www.transunion.com/business
Contact |
Dave
Blumberg |
|
TransUnion |
Email |
david.blumberg@transunion.com |
Telephone |
312-972-6646 |
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