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A® AS SUD
In its 42nd year of service, Dallas-based
Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) continues
to differentiate itself from other carriers with
exemplary Customer Service delivered by
nearly 46,000 Employees to more than 100
million Customers annually. Southwest is the
nation’s largest carrier in terms of originating
passengers boarded, and including wholly-
owned subsidiary, AirTran Airways, operates
the largest fleet of Boeing aircraft in the
world to serve 97 destinations in 41 states,
the District of Columbia, the Commonwealthof Puerto Rico, and six near-international
countries. Southwest and AirTran operate
more than 3,520 flights a day. Total operating
revenue in 2012 was $17.1 billion.
“There’s innovation at Accertify
based on a clear understanding of
what fraud is from a merchant’s
perspective. Accertify provides us
with great service because they
speak our language – you’re truly
talking fraud with them and they
get it. They’re not just an analytics
company. They know how fraud
management applies to our airline
industry, to social media, and to
retail. That’s what I appreciate.
They’ve done a great job for us.”
The Situation
Southwest Airlines is a pioneer of e-commerce in the air travel industry. It was the first air
to establish a home page on the Internet and southwest.com is the most visited airline we
site (ComScore, April 2012). The site was the conduit for booking 81% of passenger reven
during the fourth quarter of 2012. As with other e-commerce retailers, gift cards also cons
an important source of revenue. The southwestgiftcard® program launched in 2006 and, w
its success, began attracting fraudsters by 2010, according to Brandon Adams, Manager o
Ticketing Operations at Southwest Airlines. Fraud traffic spiked up during 2011 and 2012 a
more than 90% of gift cards were sold online. “Fraudsters were communicating about the
opportunity and we faced the risk of losing more than a million dollars a year,” says Adam
“We were faced with the challenge of reducing potential fraud and reversing a growing
chargeback rate back into our target range.”
The Solution
Southwest Airlines has used Accertify Fraud Management since 2008 for limiting fraud
with card-not-present ticket sales through southwest.com. The Ticketing Operations group
uses Accertify to access more than 600 distinct and relevant transaction data elements for
application during the screening process. Since implementing Accertify, Southwest Airline
has reduced total attempted fraud by approximately 50 percent. Adding screening process
for gift cards was a natural evolution of the company’s fraud fighting strategy. “Before, we
used a manual process for gift cards, which limited us to a static report of fraud attempts
during the prior 24 hours,” says Adams. “There was no real-time manipulation.” Conseque
fraudsters were able to leverage the 24-hour gap by booking and flying with a gift card tha
was purchased with a stolen credit card.
After Ti cketing Opera tions p repared a gi ft card feed for the Interceptas platform, Ac cer ti fy
refined screening rules and had the system up and running in less than a month. The
automated solution allowed Adams’ team to immediately shut down fraud attempts, and
significantly reduce gift card fraud after about five weeks. Automation allowed streamlining
gift card fraud operations while providing real-time monitoring and countermeasures. “The
tools were already in place, so it was just a m atter of configuration to get these results,” s
Adams. “Accerti fy ’s suppor t team was inv aluab le: once we turned on the solut ion, we aske
for help with fine-tuning about a dozen rules, which took a day. If we did this internally the
deployment process would have taken six to twelve months. Accertify’s service and results
just awesom e! You guys roc k!”
Accertify Helped Southwest Airlines to Quicklyradicate Online Gift ard raud
By adding gift card screening to its existing Accertify Fraud Management solution,
Southwest Airlines virtually eliminated gift card fraud in less than two months – an
leveraged automation with an 80% reduction in expert staffing requirements.
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The Results
As a result of working with Accertify, Southwest Airlines has accomplished
its primary goal of deploying an effective fraud management system that uses
automation to prevent gift card fraud. It has also achieved other results:
• Fast deployment. Southwest Airlines was able to code mappings of its gift card data
to the existing SaaS-based Accertify platform and analytic tools, create and fine-tune
rules, test and deploy the solution in less than one month.
• Identified gift card fraud. The Accertify solution has given Southwest Airlines
the ability to precisely identify gift card fraud on a real-time basis and immediately
implement effective countermeasures.
• Implement immediate countermeasures. With real-time data on gift card fraud,
the Ticketing Operations team can implement countermeasures to imm ediately stop
specific fraud exploits. Within five weeks of implementing the Accertify solution,
Southwest Airlines had virtually eliminated gift card fraud.
• Improved internal operating efficiency. Automation provided by the new solution
enabled reduction of a team of 10 specialists who prevented about $190,000 in gift
card fraud in Jan/Feb 2012 to two specialists who prevented more than $450,000 in
gift card fraud in Jan/Feb 2013.
• Helped improve overall fraud control. Since Q3/2008, Southwest Airlines has
experienced reductions in total attempted f raud (-50%), manual review rate (-44%),
and review team labor costs (-59%). The percentage of fraud prevented has
increased 13%.
A® AS SUD
“Southwest Airlines has
partnered with Accertify for
fraud management since 2008.
Early this year, we began feeding
our southwestgiftcard sales
through the Interceptas® Data
Management Platform which
immediately enhanced our ability
to shut down fraud. Southwest
continues to rely on Accertify’s
expertise and fraud solutions to
protect revenue across multiple
channels and products.”
Brandon Adams
Manager of Ticketing Operations
Southwest Airlines Co.
Gift ard Preventions - Before and After Accertify
PreventionsChargebacks
Southwest Airlines implemented a gift card feed to Accertify in January 2013
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Acc ert ify Inc ., a w hol ly-owned sub sid iary of A mer ica n E xpr ess , is a l ead ing pro vider of fra ud preven tio n, chargebac k m anagem ent , and payment gateway s olu tio nsto merchant customers spanning diverse industries worldwide. Accertify’s suite of products and services help e-commerce companies grow their business by drivingdown the total cost of fraud, simplifying business processes, and ultimately increasing revenue. To complement these solutions, Accertify also offers its customers abest-in-breed portfolio of support, professional, and managed services that empower companies to focus on growing their business, rather than on the underlyingtechnology of their e-commerce systems. For more information, please visit www.accertify.com.
The information in this document is provided for informational purposes only. Accertify, Inc. disclaims all warranties of accuracy, completeness, timeliness and tness for a particular purpos
2013 Accertify, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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