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Identity Theft & 5 Tips for Improvement

Strengthen fraud prevention and improve customer experience with five actionable tips for pain-free processes. Learn how financial institutions can address rising digital fraud, reduce friction, streamline claims handling, and invest in smarter tools to mitigate risk, prevent account takeovers, and protect customers in an increasingly vulnerable, digital-first banking environment.

5 Tips to Get Your Process Pain-Free

Fraudsters Set Sights on Vulnerabilities

Fraudsters are capitalizing on weaknesses in digital infrastructures and posing as a bank to trap customers. Given this outcome, the most targeted industries includes financial services due to their digital-forward focus. The influx of digital customers due to the pandemic puts consumer at risk for these “virtual” attacks. This continues to create an atmosphere rife with scams such as fraudsters posing as the bank and pretending to send a one-time-passcode (OTP) then using the code to perform an account takeover.

"Consumers reported losing more than $15.9 billion to fraud in 2025, an increase of more than 430% since 2020."

Fraud cases continue to skyrocket with claims of identity theft, in addition to cases involving friendly fraud and false claims. False claims stem from opportunity, desperation and increased cases of buyer’s remorse as a result of the worsening economy.

3 Factors to Address to Mitigate Risk

As financial institutions continue to adjust to the changing effects from the pandemic, increased inflation and the lagging economy, they should address three critical factors:

  1. Effectively combating the increase in fraud-related activity
  2. Increased card-not-present transactions from digital shopping
  3. Continued consideration for and management of the customer experience.

Tips to Ensure Fraud Preparedness

Tip Examples
1. Evaluate the fraud operation end-to-end from the customer perspective. Reduce the need for affidavits or include alerts for new spending behaviors.
2. Assess and evaluate the customer journey to remove time-draining obstacles that lead to dissatisfaction. Don’t make the customer tell you the story more than once and add to the process a customer summary sheet for the police report.
3. Prioritize fraud processes. Determine which is more critical and feasible: the ease of reaching an agent or changing the affidavit process.
4. Streamline your fraud operation to address shortcomings involving claims handling. Find additional chargeback opportunities or process/technology enhancements to reduce staffing needs.
5. Quickly invest in proper strategies and tools to protect against identity theft. Enhanced multi-factor authentication processes.

Although some organizations may feel confident in their current processes, it is undeniable that failing to address gaps and a lack of focus on the customer experience can be costly.

Bridgeforce Can Help You Find and Address Gaps in Your Process

For nearly three decades, Bridgeforce has provided support and guidance to financial institutions of varying sizes. We have years of hands-on industry experience, with the proven ability to provide effective results for clients both on-site and remotely.

To begin your fraud assessment, contact us today.

 

 

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