Fraud Detection and Immediate Action for its Mitigation by Interim Product Managers from Product People

The Client: Series E Marketplace

This online retailer specializes in well-known consumer goods with a broad selection of items sourced from various suppliers, ensuring they cater to a wide range of budgetary preferences. Notably, their product inventory comprises items subjected to proper testing by skilled professionals, guaranteeing their top-notch performance.

At the heart of this retailer's mission lies a strong commitment to environmental responsibility. They are dedicated to making high-end products more accessible, allowing customers to obtain premium-quality items without the hefty price tags associated with brand-new alternatives. By offering these options, they not only make quality products affordable but also contribute to sustainability by reducing the demand for new manufacturing and its associated environmental impact.

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The Mission: Interim Product Manager for a Series E Marketplace

Our client had several teams, but the Product Manager for their recently formed team had to leave the company. Since Product People had already provided experienced interim Product Managers for various teams within the client's organization, we were approached and invited to join the newly formed team. Recognizing the urgency of the situation, we quickly stepped in and offered our assistance to the new team.

The primary objective of this new team was to reduce the workload for customers by creating a reliable, minimally invasive, and high-value service. As we worked towards achieving this team goal, we encountered a case of fraudulent activity. Initially, it was reported through a customer support ticket. Subsequently, we conducted a thorough investigation and developed a strategy to mitigate fraudulent activity.

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🚀 Main Deliverable and Results

Proactively addressed the challenge of fraudulent activities for the client by identifying and addressing vulnerabilities within the eCommerce platform, thereby significantly reducing the risk of future fraud.

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Explore and Conquer: Solved for the Client

Initiative - Potential Fraud Detection and Mitigation

Problem:

The marketplace industry frequently grapples with the issue of fraudulent activities. For one of our clients, a few wholesale sellers lost 1.5 million dollars because of auto refunds that were triggered within 1 week. Items for refund were delivered to a bogus address instead of the actual seller's address.

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What has been done:

We proactively responded to a continuous three-day fraud occurrence and worked on creating a strategy to mitigate the fraudulent situation. Here is a breakdown of the steps we took to detect and mitigate the fraud:

1. Data Collection and Analysis: We collected pertinent data from user activity logs, transaction records, and user profiles. This data underwent analysis to uncover patterns and pinpoint the root cause of the fraud.
2. Aligning the Stakeholders on Effective Solutions: We conducted multiple meetings with relevant stakeholders to explore potential solutions and formulate a rollback plan. As a result, we proposed a hotfix along with the developers to address the fraud issue.
3. Thorough Documentation of the Fraud and its Mitigation Plan: To ensure all stakeholders were informed about our next steps in the fraud mitigation strategy, we comprehensively documented the plan on Confluence. This documentation included prioritized user stories that were integrated into the ongoing sprint.
4. Development, Deployment, and Testing of the Hotfix: In order to safeguard other customers from falling victim to fraud, we expedited the implementation of the fraud mitigation user story and deployed it as a hotfix in the Live environment. Rigorous testing was conducted over a one-day period to ensure its effectiveness.
5. Setting up Ongoing Monitoring: Acknowledging that fraud detection is an ongoing process, we established a routine practice of monitoring the dashboard. This allowed us to track the number the automatic refunds processed and monitor user reports of issues.
6. Educating Customers: We made sure that the customer agents educated customers about common fraud tactics and how to recognize them after which we established a feedback loop to continuously improve your fraud prevention system based on real-world experiences.

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We placed a strong emphasis on the regular assessment of our fraud prevention strategies by our dedicated teams. These evaluations were conducted regularly to ensure that our approach to mitigating fraud remained effective. We were committed to making continuous improvements to our prevention measures based on the insights and findings from these evaluations.

Our objective was to create a safer sellers’ platform for the users by staying ahead of potential fraudulent activities. By identifying and addressing vulnerabilities through these ongoing enhancements, we aimed to strengthen the user experience and provide users with a secure platform where they could trust that their transactions were protected from fraudulent activities. As a result, our efforts were geared towards not only identifying and mitigating risks for the client but also fostering user confidence in our platform's security.

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Mission Achievements: Delivered Outcomes

💡 Detected fraudulent activity and quickly aligned all the stakeholders after validating it.

💡 Developed a comprehensive Rollback strategy for Fraud Prevention.

💡 Ensured to set up regular Slack alerts by integrating Slack with the Monitoring Dashboard.