Large Convenience Store Chain Prevents Fraud at the Pump

Targeting Fraudsters – Not Customers

Throughout the process of selecting and implementing a fraud solution, the retailer had multiple factors to consider. “We want to discourage the criminal gangs from targeting our stores while ensuring our corporate customers, haulers, and teamsters are able to use our stations without interruption.”

Thus, the chain needed a flexible and accurate fraud detection system that could handle the particular challenges of its environment, without alienating valuable legitimate customers. Following an extensive request for proposal process, ACI Worldwide’s ACI Fraud Management for Merchants was selected as the solution.

“ACI Fraud Management for Merchants has the features we need: a flexible rules engine that we can use to create specific fraud strategies and generate appropriate alerts. What struck us immediately was the interaction with our payment authorization stream in both near and real time. That’s critical for pay-at-the-pump fraud, when we need to make authorization decisions while the transaction is taking place.”

The first rule that was put in place was to counter pay-at-the-pump fraud. The typical pattern with this kind of fraud is to use a fake card for a rapid succession of transactions to make the most from the card before the fraud is spotted and the card blocked.

“We have tweaked that rule over the past few years, but the basic principle has remained the same and it has proved to be very successful. It operates in real time and it has virtually eliminated pay-at-the-pump fraud.”

Winning the War Against Fraud

Since implementing the solution, the chain has seen fraud levels drop by 50 percent across the board and pay-at-the-pump fraud disappear almost completely. The company is now also recognized as having the lowest chargeback to sales ratios in its sector and, because it was one of the first to target pay-at-the-pump fraud, it is known to be a much harder target.