Pre-Pay Cards: The Industry Fights Back

As leading identity verification specialists in the pre-paid market, we are able to report a 500% rise in the volume of ID checks being run by prepaid operators to prevent fraudsters creating prepaid accounts with false and stolen identities.

In the past three months, we have signed deals with operators including EasyKard, POS Payment Systems, Altair, PDQ online and Spectrum.

In the UK card fraud amounts to £428 million according to the latest card fraud research from APACS. Card schemes and the ecommerce communities have fought back against the fraudster by employing fraud prevention technologies such as ID checks and IP address validation technology.  However, Fraudsters are always on the look-out for new tools to help them commit CNP fraud and the opportunity to load funds onto prepaid cards with stolen and cloned credit cards extends the “window of fraud opportunity”. 

Our ID check service for prepaid operators called 192 Prepaid-ID is a global solution, and verifies customer name, address, date of birth and home telephone number. The checks happen in real-time when customers create their prepaid account – but in the background, so a prospective customer never knows they’re taking place.

“With criminals using a number of techniques to commit card fraud, we feel it is important to always be one step ahead and to protect our customers in the best possible way. 192 Prepaid-ID is helping us to do just that,” said Edward Platt, at EasyKard.

Adam Rigler MD of Spectrum says, “www.red88.co.uk is a pre-paid card targeted at the UK and EU Chinese / Asian markets. ID checking can be a lengthy process, but Spectrum Financial Group, made the process simple with the help of 192 Prepaid-ID.”

“Fraudsters are an entrepreneurial and opportunistic breed,” said David Pope, director at 192.com Business Services. “If they see a new tool available to them in their pursuit of card fraud they will seize that opportunity. ID verification at the point of prepaid card account creation adds that crucial layer of security so that prepaid operators can prevent prepaid accounts being opened with false or stolen identities.  A fraudster would then have to be pretty stupid to open an account in their own name and load a prepaid account with funds from a stolen or cloned credit card.”