In an effort to thwart fraud attempts at the earliest stage of the online ticket-purchasing process, Turkish Airlines Inc. has opted to link its website to CyberSource Corp.’s fraud-monitoring services.
CyberSource on Oct. 4 said it will provide the Istanbul-based airlines with its Decision Manager and Performance Monitoring fraud protection programs.
Turkish Airlines purchased CyberSource services because of company expansion and the ongoing fraud threat, not because it was experiencing a major problem, Akif Kahn, CyberSource director of products and services, tells PaymentsSource.
Turkish Airlines, established in 1993 with only five airplanes, has grown to a fleet of 176 aircraft, a company press release notes.
And while some airlines choose to link the fraud protection services to payment gateways or reservation systems, Turkish Airlines will link its website to the services, Kahn says.
The service seeks to detect potential fraud by comparing a ticket-buying transaction against data from an estimated 60 billion transactions scanned by CyberSource, a Visa Inc. company based in Mountain View, Calif.
Decision Manager screens for address and bank identification number validation, compares potential false identity instances with other companies, and monitors various other parameters set up by the client, while Performance Monitoring provides access to a CyberSource expert online to aid clients in analysis, Kahn says.
The fraud monitoring expert recommends the best use of the fraud protection service and provides advice on the latest fraud trends, which allows the client more time to focus on operating the business, Kahn adds.
A customer buying a ticket from Turkish Airlines would not be aware the transaction is being screened for potential fraud, Kahn says. “The Decision Manager is integrated into the back-end of the website, so the customer never leaves the airline website,” Kahn says.
The fraud protection alerts the airline of possible fraud during the transaction with a “reject” response, allowing the airline to contact the customer while still online. But approximately 26% of transactions will be reviewed manually, even after an e-ticket has been issued. If a reviewed transaction proves to be fraudulent, the customer would be contacted and the e-ticket canceled, Kahn explains.
The program helps deter “friendly fraud” airline-ticket cases when the perpetrator claims the ticket was not used, or other fraud in which the buyer has no intention of paying in the future, because the program adds those instances to a “negative” list within the Decision Manager for future reference, Khan says.
Kahn says it is common for airline ticket-fraud perpetrators to pose as bogus travel agents in order to take cash payments from genuine travelers and purchase tickets on their behalf using stolen cards.
One industry expert agrees airlines represent a significant target in the e-commerce world for cybercriminals.
“All businesses conducting e-commerce are targets of criminals seeking places where financial transactions are taking place online, and airlines are a key part of that value chain,” Julie Conroy McNelley, senior analyst and fraud expert with Boston-based Aite Group, tells PaymentsSource.
For a growing company like Turkish Airlines, keeping up with peers who are enlisting the services of companies with good fraud prevention techniques is important, McNelley says.
“If you are the only one on the block with no fence and no guard dog, the bad guys will come knocking at your door,” McNelley reasons.
In documenting the effectiveness of fraud protection in the airline industry, CyberSource recently issued a report about the decrease in online fraud (
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