Summertime means more hours of daylight, more time poolside, and (hopefully!) more vacation and travel. Unfortunately, it seems fraudsters love a good holiday as much as the rest of us — Forter reports that online fraud attacks against the travel industry increase by nearly 50% during the summer months.
Forget Heat Stroke, Beware of Summer Fraudsters
For online travel businesses, understanding how to combat the opportunistic fraudster “heat” is the key to staying cool this summer. Forter’s Sixth Annual Fraud Attack Index reported that land travel and accommodations, witnessed a 19% increase in attack rates. Since customers expect instant confirmation of their travel booking, Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and travel businesses must ensure that there is no friction leading to the point of payment for their potential customers. For many travel businesses the added value they offer users – whether it be the option of instant booking or payments, or the possibility of subscribing to a loyalty and reward program – prove to be the vulnerabilities most-often targeted by fraudsters.
And Therein Lies the Rub…
Transactions and bookings where the payment is made online and in advance are particularly prone to attack, but are similarly increasingly popular with good customers. The travel industry needs to be especially careful to emphasize accuracy in antifraud going forward, avoiding risk-averse approaches that often result in false positives or turn away good customers, while also minimizing fraud.
A Better Way Forward, in Partnership with Forter
For Priceline, partnering with Forter to block the bad guys, while ensuring their good customers enjoy a friction-free experience across the platform, has been a key component of the company’s strategy. Forter’s real-time fraud prevention solution protects customers and Priceline’s business from fraud whether users are booking airfare, hotel accommodations, car rentals, or travel packages. Based on this approach, Priceline has experienced a 52% decrease in fraud chargebacks with zero impact on their decline rate.
“Fraud prevention is a top concern in the online travel sector, which is why we chose to partner with Forter to ensure that our customers enjoy a safe and smooth experience when booking travel on Priceline,” said Eric Lorenz, Vice President of Finance & Operations for Priceline.
Priceline trusts Forter to make the right approve/decline decisions, both at the point of checkout, and beyond. No more summertime sadness, no more unnecessary disruptions in their customers’ travel plans.
For more information on how Forter has helped Priceline mitigate fraud, read our case study.
