Trading Standards Test Sites Selling Age Restricted Goods

Hailing the success of an undercover under-age knife sales operation, the Minister for London has announced that trading standards will extend test purchasing to online retailers.

In the largest operation of its kind, trading standards carried out 799 test purchases between 20 October and 10 November. A massive 148 (19%) of test purchases resulted in a sale. Test purchases were made at stores across London, using teenage volunteers, including police cadets. Of the sales, 32 per cent were from recognised high-street chain retailers. Knives sold to underage customers ranged from standard kitchen knives and blades through to a machete being sold to a 14 year old.

MPS Commander Mark Simmons commented: "We are pleased that retailers are becoming aware of the changes to legislation regarding the sale of knives and operations such as these will act as a reminder to those individuals who continue to flout the law that they will be caught and prosecuted.”

The online operation was announced at a press conference held on Tuesday 16th December and is expected to last for 3 months. London Trading Standards (LoTSA) will trawl internet sites that sell knives carrying out test purchases and monitoring and prosecuting those that unlawfully sell to under-18s. The purpose of the operation, the largest of its kind to date, is to reduce online access to knives for under-18s, while gathering evidence as to how easy or difficult it currently is for a young person to purchase a knife online.

The Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 stipulates that is prohibited to sell knives to persons under the age of eighteen. To find out more about selling age restricted goods online, please visit: www.192business.com/agerestriction.

Age verification for online customers is simple to implement, cost effective and robust. To see how you can age verify your customers, and protect your reputation and profits, please request a trial today.

View the full Trading Standards release here: http://nds.coi.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp? | ReleaseID=387731&NewsAreaID=2

Online Delivery Report 2008

E-commerce specialists Snowvalley have released their Online Delivery Report for 2008. This is the fourth year they have produced the research, and makes for interesting reading for anyone involved in online retail, particularly anyone with a role in fraud or fulfillment.

As part of the report, 107 UK online retailers are visited and orders are placed with each, with the orders tracked from start to delivery completion. 30 of the sites surveyed appear on the IMRG-Hitwise top 50 retailers, and the report gives details for all of the retailers, in comparison to the other 77 sites surveyed, to show trends amongst the top performers.

Importance of online shopping delivery
The report explores the cost of receiving an online delivery, citing John Lewis as just one retailer to have successfully implemented free website delivery. It also explores the choices available, online support and order fulfillment quoting only 71% of orders placed arriving on time. The report makes for interesting reading, especially with Christmas falling on a Thursday, meaning that website customers have longer to place an order in time for Christmas delivery. The Royal Mail has also taken into account the later posting dates, and increased demand and have introduced Sunday redeliveries on 21st December as well as evening deliveries on Monday 22nd and Tuesday 23rd.

Billing Address Verification
Fraud Managers may be particularly interested in the Delivery Flexibility section of the report. Figures show that only 9% of online retailers insist on delivering the first order to the billing address, however whilst 2 retailers had abandoned this policy since 2007, another 2 had implemented it, which the report suggests is “probably in the light of increased fraud”.

Does your fraud policy allow split delivery?
More surprisingly were the findings on split delivery; only 12% of online retailers allowing 2 items to be delivered to 2 addresses within one transaction. Whilst gift and wine suppliers were more likely to offer this service, no electrical suppliers provided this service, again perhaps due to the risk of fraud. Address verification across multiple addresses is a low cost check, and implementing this may help retailers stand out in an increasingly competitive market, as well as retaining higher spending customers.

International Address Verification
Another area for improvement is international delivery. Only 24% of retailers surveyed were fully international, with 48% only delivering to UK addresses. With international address verification from 192, ecommerce operators are able to capture, cleanse and verify address and customer details in 237 countries, allowing greater flexibility, especially useful for those Christmas gifts to expatriate friends and family!

The report shows a positive outlook for online fulfillment, albeit with areas for improvement, perhaps best summed up by one of the surveyed retailers as:

“We are constantly reviewing our delivery services to best suit the needs of our customers. We feel that by offering our customers a wide range of delivery options, they are likely to find one which fits with their requirements.”

The full report is available for free download at: http://www.snowvalley.com/reports

To find out how 192 can help you allow more flexible deliveries and prevent fraud, please contact us for a free demo and trial of our services.

Police Arrest Gang Over Online Payments Fraud

Police in Dubai have arrested 3 men over the alleged theft of credit card information stolen from online transactions. The gang have stolen 16,975 credit card details from people making online payments on government and e-commerce sites.

The arrests came after intelligence was received in July, but came to late to stop an estimated £40million being defrauded. It is believed that the gang used the stolen information to then buy commodities such as gold and diamonds.

Police are also making arrangements to extradite a fourth man who is believed to be involved with the fraud, but left the company before he could be arrested.

The arrests follow speculation that card fraud is becoming increasingly common in Dubai and has similarities to a gang caught using stolen cards to buy laptops and other high value electrical items.

The CID team in charge of the arrests have renewed warnings to the public to remain vigilant in checking their bank account and credit card statements.

German Data Theft Confirms Need for International Identity Verification

This week, WirtschaftsWoche a weekly economic publication in Germany revealed how identity thieves in Germany have been hawking the details of 21 million people. The thieves were looking for 12million Euro for 21 million names, addresses, phone numbers and even bank account numbers.

The data was being touted for sale at a cost of EUR 0.55 per record, with thieves even handing over a CD containing a sample of 1.2 million accounts to prove their story. Reporters from the publication met with two individuals in Hamburg before handing over the disc to the relevant authorities. It is believed that the data was stolen from a call centre, although this hasn’t at the time of writing been confirmed.

Although there have been other stories of mass data theft and loss this year, most of the data compromised has not included bank account details. The theft means that 1 in 4 German householders are now at risk of identity theft, and for UK retailers and ecommerce operators re-enforces the need to carry out international identity verification on customers.

For more information on how international identity verification can help you protect your business from identity fraud, please contact us.

NFSA Calls for Mortgage Fraud Collaboration

The National Fraud Strategic Authority (NFSA) has called for the mortgage sector to work together to tackle mortgage fraud.

Their report “Fighting Mortgage Fraud Together”, published today highlights the scale of mortgage fraud loss, estimates to be hundreds of millions of pounds. Developed by the NFSA a number of key partners were engaged in the research and development, including the Council for Mortgage Lenders and the Financial Services Authority.

As well as over valued properties, the report also highlights high loan to value mortgages, which have been abused by fraudsters to maximize their profit at low risk.

The report also highlights four key areas of improvement to be made:

Designing-out the fraud risks inherent in different mortgage products and processes
Instigating preventative safeguards and controls within firms at the right level to make mortgage fraud easier to spot and stop.

Ensuring professional integrity amongst key professional sectors
Driving up the risk to perpetrators through more effective detection and prosecution
Welcoming the NFSA’s report, Attorney General, Baroness Scotland QC said,

“In this difficult economic climate, more than ever, we need to be protecting ourselves and consumers from mortgage fraud. Mortgage fraud has had a troubling impact on the financial services sector and housing markets. It can also have devastating effects on those families who may find themselves in financial difficulties as a result of artificially inflated prices or identity theft.”

The full mortgage fraud report is available here.