Fighting the Good (Fraud) Fight

Fighting the Good (Fraud) Fight

Hi, I’m Matt Davies and I’ve just joined SEON to be their CMO. It’s a huge honor to be here and start my journey as a Fraud Fighter. 

We’ve all been there, you or a family member gets an email and it looks like your bank, credit card company, favorite online shop, email or social media company, or gaming provider.

Say it looks like a valid email – maybe you click on it, maybe your “spidey sense” says something doesn’t look right either way you decide to have a quick look at the email address it came from.

Then you can see that “yrgstyyythstryk228j@amaz0n.com” and draw the conclusion that this person is probably isn’t who they say they are…

But what if you could quickly check:

  • the validity of any email or phone number
  • all linked digital accounts (from Netflix and Disney+ to social media and telecommunication apps)
  • the age of a user’s email address
  • how many data breaches
  • if a VPN has been used
  • and much more…

That’s what drew me to the company – that near-instant, digital footprint, data-driven assessment of fraud risk to help tackle a problem everyone faces.

The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) said in 2021 that the UK is truly in a fraud epidemic and that it is a national security threat.

The loss from fraudulent eCommerce transactions is set to grow from $27 billion in 2020 to $52 billion in 2025. That’s the problem we’re trying to help solve. 

ecommerce fraud seon

I knew there was something special when the CEO did a real time demo on my email address which showed my digital footprint and my low risk score (thank goodness for that or that could have been the shortest interview in history).

That a-ha moment (not the Morton Harket a-ha) really showed the power of such a modern platform to help protect organizations, their customers, and you and me from being a victim of fraud. 

It’s very exciting to be part of such an innovative startup that was recognized recently by Sifted as one of the European Top 100 startups.

We take a very modern approach to how the platform works (real-time data, API driven with machine learning built-in) but also how the product is priced (pay for what you use, transparent, and easy to measure). 

I came from a world where we used to talk a lot about data but the way we access and use data is changing with a lot of discussion around streaming data and enrichment.

This is where SEON plays and I’m very excited to see how SEON is modernizing, democratizing, and disrupting the way we detect fraud in the same way data disrupted cybersecurity and observability.

The approach SEON takes in using data to help fight fraud and enrich existing information also gives us other differentiators. We are helping customers see some really interesting customer lifetime value factors from that same digital footprint they are using for fraud detection.

If a customer’s digital footprint shows a certain device profile, with certain social media accounts, online entertainment accounts, etc – should they be offered a more personalized and differentiated experience based on them being a high-value customer?  

That all means that SEON helps reduce the cost of fraud and helps grow revenue from the same data on one platform. If you want to find out more about what our customers say then there are some great customer reviews on G2 and Capterra

More than anything else, I’m really excited about the stories we’re going to tell over the next few years, championing some fantastic customer wins such as Biller who accelerated lending from 4 days to 10 seconds whilst seeing an 87% drop in fraud rates and Felix Pago who delivered 90%+ confidence in detecting fraud and accepting payments.

You’re going to see some hopefully fantastic, funny, compelling content (definitely check out the Webby that SEON won recently for the “Harold” series). 

Finally, the icon for the company is a fist bump – that really is the thing we do when we help our customers fight fraud.

Looking forward to some fist bumps in person over the next few months and sharing some very exciting innovations coming in the second half of this year with you all.

Thank you for reading. 

Matt

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