Identity fraud can cost a company thousands of dollars. Unauthorized use of customer accounts and personal information not only affects your customers, it hurts your business, brand and finances. Banks, health insurance companies, cable providers and many other businesses routinely become pawns in the schemes of criminals to unlawfully gain access to information, benefits, and money.
Millions of people experience identity theft every year. This can be in the form of unauthorized access to an existing account or creating a new, fraudulent account in the victim’s name. Not only is identity theft costly in terms of time and money for the victim, security breaches cause serious damage to the relationship a business has with its customers. It is important that businesses do everything in their power to protect the personal information of their customers and actively prevent identity fraud from hurting their clients and brand.
Authenticating customer numbers through caller-ID services has done little in preventing criminals from successfully conning companies out of information and money. Spoof calls, a tactic that manipulates the caller-ID display to conceal the call’s origin, can be used by criminals to con call centers into believing the call is from a legitimate client. Additionally, criminals can extract personal information from clients to be able to correctly respond to verification questions. The time and funds spent on the authentication process can drain a customer service department or call center and it may not even prevent identity fraud. Asking for a customer’s personal information in order to verify his or her identity--a process known as identity interrogation--not only feels intrusive, but it also frustrating and takes valuable time away from both the customer and the employee. In today’s fast-paced world, customers expect to access their accounts as quickly as possible, but are hindered by the drawn out process of answering questions to validate their identities. Despite the inefficiencies and inconvenience of loss of time and money, many companies continue to use identity interrogation as the primary way to guard against identity theft.
Large or small, every business needs to take the necessary steps to block fraudulent activities from hurting their customers and business. Caller-ID services and software have continually adapted to the growing demand of companies that need to protect their operations. One of the biggest concerns for a business is the need for more time-efficient authentication processes. Companies such as TRUSTID have developed caller-ID services and firewall software that eliminate the need to ask customers to give personal information or static data to verify their identity. The TRUSTID software allows businesses to analyze and verify the identity of the caller before they are even transferred to a customer service agent. While eliminating the need to interrogate customers may seem like a small change, TRUSTID says their software and caller-ID system lowers costs for customer service departments and call centers by up to 20 percent.
Traditional authentication programs still require customer service individuals to spend time talking to customers to draw out pieces of personal information in order to verify their identity. While many businesses view this outdated practice as a necessary expense of time and money, companies like TRUSTID are using technology in new ways to simplify and make the authentication process hassle-free. Identity verification processes can include obtaining personal information such as date of birth or social security number, personal facts like the street you grew up on or mother’s maiden name, or validating the client’s phone number. Unlawful tactics like spoof calls make protecting clients increasingly difficult. That is why TRUSTID has developed a system that can verify the identity of a caller without needing personal information and can even alert customer service agents if the the call is suspicious or potentially spoofed. In order to successfully commit identity fraud, criminals just need to obtain personal information about the client or use a caller-ID spoof technique. But with TRUSTID’s system, a criminal would have to gain access to the client’s land line or cell phone to commit the crime. This process makes the crime harder to commit because personal information is less secure than personal possessions.
These new solutions allow businesses to cut costs of customer service activities and allow their customers to access their accounts without being prompted to answer intrusive questions. Overall, companies like TRUSTID are eliminating the unnecessary and outdated customer interrogation process to verify identities and providing a more efficient alternative that will benefit your business and your customers.
Image Source: Phil Dowsing Creative
