Situation

This merchant experienced an uptick in chargeback activity, localized in purchases made through various marketing affiliates. After a series of checkout page enhancements and countermeasures, the chargebacks had not abated. The client asked Glenbrook to identify the gaps in their control environment that allowed this fraud to occur. The company was keen to identify appropriate controls for short- and long-term transactional risk management to mitigate operational and reputational risks going forward. 

Approach

To assist with this work, we assessed the client’s digital commerce channel focusing on U.S. sales. The engagement scope encompassed affiliate-generated and direct online sales through the customer payments lifecycle. We developed a Payments Risk Management (PRM) control strategy that simultaneously aimed to maximize sales and minimize payments risk.

Impact

The recommended control strategy creates a “zone defense” of four main control areas. Prioritization considered how to effectively close control gaps without pushing fraud schemes to payment methods or geographies with missing or weak controls.