Monica Eaton Says Merchants Will Be Hit Hardest
Chargebacks911 COO Monica Eaton offered her insight in a new guest feature for PaymentsSource, discussing the biggest security story of 2017: the Equifax hack. The massive information hack exposed 143 million Americans’ data to fraudsters. It’s a bad situation for everyone, but as Monica explains, merchants could end up paying the highest price.
“We’re likely to see more fraud attempts than ever as criminals use stolen information to make fraudulent transactions,” Monica explains. “No matter the method, merchants ultimately pay the price. This usually takes the form of a chargeback, which means the merchant loses the sales revenue, any merchandise shipped and the cost of shipping as well as the interchange fees.”
Of course, not everyone whose data was exposed in the incident will be the victim of a fraud attack. However, with this massive cache of data potentially in criminal hands, the generalized risk level is higher than ever. Merchants absolutely need to pay attention to the developing situation, plus take preemptive action.
According to Monica, “The only solution is to take a multilayered approach.” As she puts it, “Merchants need to combine complimentary strategies and techniques to try and identify and intercept as many criminal fraud attacks as possible.”