Even when the final fraudulent transaction takes place in another channel or even another organisation, our customer data shows the early stages are likely to have started in the contact centre. This blog explains why and signposts you to our best practice guide on what to do about it.
Fraud remains a persistent issue, still accounting for nearly 40% of all crime in England and Wales. UK Finance reported 2.97 million confirmed fraud cases, with a staggering £1.17 billion being stolen from consumers in 2023.
While the scale of fraud is well understood, the role contact centres play in enabling these crimes is often overlooked.
Even when fraud transactions occur across other channels, contact centres often play a key role in facilitating these criminal activities. Understanding this relationship is crucial when developing a comprehensive, cross-channel fraud prevention strategy.
Fraudsters target contact centres because they are often seen as weak links in an organisation’s defences. They are not typically covered by the same robust security measures as digital channels. Additionally, human interaction is a significant factor—fraudsters manipulate contact centre agents and exploit their trust.
Fraudster tactics
Fraudsters use a variety of tactics within contact centres, depending on the stage of their attack. These activities range from gathering initial information to initiating transactions. Based on telephony data from Smartnumbers customers, we generally see the following breakdown:
1. Information gathering
At the early stages of their attack, fraudsters validate and enrich the stolen information they’ve acquired. They exploit weaknesses in Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems or manipulate agents into divulging sensitive details.
2. Amending accounts for future fraud
A large amount of fraudulent behaviour in contact centres involves making changes to accounts that will enable future fraudulent activity. This includes altering personal information, contact details, or banking settings to facilitate future thefts.
3. Fraudulent applications
Fraudsters attempt to create new applications to gain access to funds. Whether applying for loans, credit cards, or other financial products, this activity helps them unlock resources from the victim’s account or organisation.
4. Money laundering
Fraudsters use the contact centre to check when stolen funds have cleared, before moving them elsewhere.
For more on the different stages in the fraud lifecycle, you can download and share our fraud lifecycle graphic.
Complex organised crime
Fraudsters don’t just focus on a single customer account, contact centre or organisation. Their activities are generally part of a larger fraud operation that spans multiple customers across multiple companies. In fact, often the data fraudsters gather in one contact centre may not directly result in a financial loss within the same organisation.
For example, information gathered during reconnaissance at a retail bank’s contact centre might later be used to open a new digital account with another bank or apply for an insurance product at a completely different organisation using stolen identity details. Other times, the goal is even simpler: to sell the stolen data on to other criminals.
Fraudsters also often use stolen data as part of more complex consumer scams. This type of fraud, known as Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud, resulted in a loss of £239.3 million in 2023 alone. In these situations, the fraudster manipulates the account holder into authorising making payments under false pretenses, sometimes through contact centres. [could link to consumers acting under fraudster spell blog here]
Protecting the contact centre is top priority
Securing the contact centre is a crucial part of protecting an organisation from fraud. Understanding the full scope of fraud activities in the contact centre allows organisations to implement better preventative measures across all channels.
Based on our experience and the work we do with organisations using the Smartnumbers platform, we’ve created a ‘best practice guide’ for securing the contact centre and protecting your organisation from fraud. This includes a multi-layered security strategy that includes both technology and training, to help organisations safeguard their contact centres from becoming an easy target for fraudsters.
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