Five Ways to Detect Online Fraud

Now more than ever, you cannot afford to lose money to online fraudsters who purchase goods using stolen credit cards. Geolocation monitoring can help you detect fraudulent orders before you fall prey.  As Quova explains it, the foundation for geolocation is the internet protocol (IP) address, a numeric string assigned to every device attached to the web. When someone surfs the web, his computer sends out this IP address to every website he visits. An IP address can provide information regarding the user’s country, region, city, postcode, and time zone, which can help you determine if the visitor to your site really is where he says he is. Equipped with this information, you can use geolocation to flag and address suspicious transactions.

Quova offers five ways to use geolocation to help you detect fraud:

1. Check for anonymous proxy servers and other location-masking systems.
2. Check the distance between actual and expected user locations.
3. Use domain information to assess risk.
4. Build user profiles.
5. Use time-zone information to track the transaction “velocity.”