Fraudsters have long been taking advantage of customer service representatives, pretending to be someone they aren’t on the phone, over email, or over to chat to access accounts, information, and money. As the pandemic took hold and online engagements became even more frequent with people staying home over the last year, the number of fraud attempts began to rise as bad actors looked to take advantage of the fully digital environment. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates that—between stimulus checks and unemployment benefits—Americans have lost more than $3.3 billion in COVID-19 related fraud.
Even through the onslaught, organizations continue to rely on outdated authentication methods to determine identities—which not only leaves them susceptible to fraud, but also creates frustrating, time-consuming experiences for consumers. The customer service representative is required to ask countless questions used to confirm identity, including pins, passwords, contact information, account number, SSN, and answers to pre-set challenge questions. Forgetting an answer to just one of the questions can delay the process event further, as the agent won’t be able to authenticate the customer’s identity and, thus, cannot help them with their inquiry. And unfortunately, these methods aren’t the most effective in protecting against fraud; most—if not all—of this information can be sought after by fraudsters on the dark web and can be used to hack into an account regardless of the precautions.