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Read more Mobile Phone Geolocating - Fraud Library
The Fraud Practice eCommerce Fraud Consulting Services
Mobile Phone Geolocating is the ability to compare the physical location of a customer's mobile phone in relation to the location provided by a consumer.
Mobile Phone Geolocating - the Wave of the Future
Mobile Phone Geolocating is the ability to compare the physical location of a customer's mobile phone in relation to the location given by a consumer (IP Address, Billing Address, Shipping Address). Mobile Phone Geolocating is a technique that can be used for card present and card not present transactions, and can be applied world-wide.
When you can directly tie the phone number to the consumer, Mobile Phone Geolocating can be a great tool for new account authentication and verification that a consumer is who they say they are. It also provides excellent ongoing authentication that the legitimate account holder is the one initiating transactions. Consequently it has applicability for preventing first and third party fraud. When you combine Mobile Phone Geolocating with device identification or account credentials it also offers a strong two factor authentication platform.
- Helps to detect the fraudulent use of authentic profile data.
- Helps to detect the use of proxies to hide actual location.
- Helps to detect real consumer’s denying they initiated transactions.
- Helps to tie the transaction to a shipping address.
Pros and Cons Mobile Phone GPS include:
- Can tie physical location to geo-location
- Great for authenticating repeat consumers that travel frequently
- Can reduce manual review costs for ongoing authentication that a transaction is coming from the legitimate account holder
- Technique is still in its early phases, so global and regional coverage are an issue
Considerations When Implementing or Buying This Functionality
- What countries are supported?
- How does the service handle unknown numbers and prepaid cell phones?
- GSM vs. CDMA network compatibility? Services that only support GSM will only be able to authenticate a small number of US residents as the majority of US cell phone networks are not GSM.
- Most services require at least a one time opt in from the consumer, some require permission every time.
- Consumers' privacy concerns?
- Is it installed on the wireless provider's network?
- Not all service providers give the same level of location detail, some only offer country while others will go down to the address.
- If you are using it for first time authentication, you still need to perform authentication that the phone number is tied to the consumer.
Estimated Costs – Typically this service is offered on a per-transaction basis. After the service is installed a fee would be paid to the service provider for each transaction verification.
Alternative Solutions – Phone verification, IP geolocation, Telephone Number Identification or device fingerprinting.
Vendors –Spriv, Ericsson, Google Mobile.
A company sends in a mobile phone number and receives back a physical location of the mobile phone. If the service provider requires opt in by the end user, the end user would typically receive an SMS message requesting permission to send the location data. With the location data the company can compare it to transaction data or existing profile data to determine if the end user is authentic.
On new accounts: Make sure you have authenticated the phone number is tied to the end user and match the location of the phone with the location of the end user at the time of purchase or signup.
On existing accounts: With the understanding you know the number is tied to the end user, match the physical location of the end user with the location of the transaction.
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