Sertifi Advanced Fraud Tools: A Practical Use of AI for Hospitality

The buzz of AI has been around for awhile now and clearly isn’t slowing down. Rarely does a day pass without hearing new perspectives about AI or applications of it – and for many, it can be a lot to digest. Is this something I should be paying close attention to? Should I not get caught up in the hype? Do I have to be ambitious about it to see any value out of it?

At our recent Sertifi Sessions: Dallas event, we sat down with two of the industry’s top consultants to explore just that. The consensus was, while we’ll see AI starting to weave itself into some use cases, adoption will be slow by the hospitality industry, a historical norm.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You can apply AI at a smaller scale and still reap its benefits.

In fact, AI may be powering more of your tools and processes than you realize, as it can often be the silent hero working behind-the-scenes.

How do we know? Because AI is what you’ll find under the hood of Sertifi’s advanced fraud tools.

In case you’re unfamiliar, our fraud tools come free with every subscription to our credit card authorization solution to automatically verify the cards given to you. It’s the perfect example of practical AI application, as in an easy, secure, and trusted way to embrace AI.

How do Sertifi’s fraud tools work? 

Sertifi partners with Kount, a leader in AI-driven fraud prevention for e-commerce and card-not-present transactions, to deliver our fraud tools. Using a combination of AI and data analysis, we use data from the user and the credit card to assess if a transaction is potentially fraudulent.

Data points assessed include:

• Card Details
• Name
• Payer IP Address
• Email
• Physical Address
• Billing Address
• User Device
• AVS/CVV Verification
• and more

How do I use the tools?

A card’s risk level is graded from A to F, and you’ll see a detailed explanation for why a card was given the grade it received. This grade is an estimation of the overall safety of the card provided in your authorization request.

• Cards rated A, B, or C have multiple indicators that it’s safe to proceed with the card.
• Cards with D grades are likely safe but notably affected by one or more risk factors.
• Cards with an F grade are obviously the riskiest to proceed with. In this case, best to follow up with your guest first.
  
  

Here are some of the risk factors you may be alerted to:

Risk Factors	Explanation
The email address is brand new.	A recently created email address can sometimes be the sign of a fraudster trying to cover their tracks.
This customer performed more than 7 transactions over the past two weeks.	A high volume of transactions can indicate a fraudster attempting to test a payment card or attempting to extract as much value from the card as possible before it’s deactivated.
This customer is associated with 5 or more unique email addresses.	Most individuals only use one or two different email addresses depending on their needs. A greater number of email addresses can be a cause for suspicion.
User’s IP is associated with known fraud.	The user’s IP address has already been identified as a source of fraud.

What results can I expect to see from using this AI-powered solution?

Fraud risk is becoming more and more prevalent, putting you at an increased risk of losing thousands of dollars a year to chargebacks. While it's impossible to eliminate chargebacks altogether, Sertifi helps you proactively defend your business, resulting in:

• More confident acceptance or rejection of transactions.
• Increased operational efficiency via automation.
• Increased guest assurance with a PCI-compliant processes.
• Preservation of your company’s reputation.
• Improved bottom line.