Portland, Ore.-based online fraud detection company iovation helped police in Kirkland, Wash., bust up a fraud ring that involved thousands of dollars in fraudulent credit card charges, the company announced.
Police used ReputationManager 360, iovation’s online fraud prevention solution, to identify and track the fraudulent charges that targeted at least 15 people, the company said.
ReputationManager 360 tracks electronic devices including computers, tablets and cell phones and identifies fraudulent online activities by making associations between devices and individuals.
“This is a unique case because it wasn’t exclusively an online or offline crime,” said Kirkland police Detective Adam Haas. “Offline clues helped, but the online digital bread crumbs sniffed out by iovation were critical in tying everything together, leading to a much bigger crime ring than we originally suspected.”
iovation said the case began in January 2011 when fraudulent credit card charges totaling $5,000 were reported at electronics and department stores.
Using ReputationManager 360, the credit card issuer discovered that fraudulent credit card applications for the cards used in the crime were made from one specific computer, iovation said. Then, the technology tied that same computer to more than a dozen additional victims of credit card fraud.
Using this information as well as surveillance videos, Haas identified the suspect as a male who had been stealing residential mail and using it to complete online credit card applications and create fraudulent pieces of identification.
“ReputationManager 360 was developed specifically to bust fraud rings like this,” said Jon Karl, vice president of corporate development for iovation. “This private-public partnership is an example of how sharing data through iovation helps limit losses for both businesses and consumers.”
