Guest Analysis: ControlScan Releases Online Transaction Laundering White Paper

July 7, 2015 – The underwriting process for online sellers often includes automated technologies, as well as manual website checks to ensure that the merchant, its products/services and its customers align with the details provided on the merchant application. After years of getting burned, the payments industry has become adept at discovering anomalies on the merchant’s reported website, i.e., the site the merchant told them they use for business.

The fraudsters behind illegal e-commerce don’t give up easily, however. Instead, they adjust their tactics to continue operating as effectively and efficiently as possible. Fraudsters’ ongoing attempts to avoid detection create an evolving landscape that challenges the risk-monitoring methods used by payments industry stakeholders today.

Within this evolving online landscape a new enemy has emerged, and it’s catching many merchant service providers off guard. Now, rather than hiding their illegal pharmacies, counterfeit product sales, illicit pornography, unlicensed gambling, and the like on the website listed on their merchant application, unscrupulous merchants are creating an ecosystem of unreported e-commerce. In this new scenario, the site the MSP knows about serves as a storefront to which payments are funneled, effectively masking the nefarious sales activity taking place on one or more associated yet undisclosed websites.

Understand your organization’s risk—and options to reduce your exposure. Download your free copy of Online Transaction Laundering and the Evolving Landscape of E-Commerce Merchant Fraud and you’ll learn:

• The size and scope of the online transaction laundering problem;
• Transaction laundering’s sophistication over previous methods for hiding illegal e-commerce; and
• How payments industry stakeholders are working to detect transaction laundering and mitigate the associated business risks.

About ControlScan
ControlScan is a security, compliance and risk management partner to hundreds of merchant service providers representing millions of small and mid-sized businesses. For more information, please visit ControlScan.com or call 800-825-3301.