Will FACTA eventually extend to e-commerce

OK - here's a semi-deep thought. While we have been focusing a lot of our attention on how address changes lead to ID Theft in financial services - we also understand that most of the fraud in e-commerce can be traced back to transactions where there is a difference between the "Bill To" address and the "Ship To" address. Think about it for a moment. If someone has stolen your credit card - how do they use on the internet to gets goods fraudulently shipped? They first fill in the correct Bill To address and then ship to an alternate location. Most in the banking industry would not classify this as ID Theft, but rather a Lost/Stolen card. However - with the stakes rising on detecting and detering ID Theft per the Fact Act, I am wondering if it is only a matter of time before e-commerce transactions with "Bill To" / "Ship To" address discrepancies will be covered under the Fact Act.

You will be hearing more from me on ways to combat this type of fraud in the coming days and weeks.

If you have any perspectives - I'd love to hear from you.

A.E>>>

Solutions Coming into the Conversation

I just got off the phone with one of our partners, and I shared our experiences that most of the banks, issuers are much more focused on the PLAN for Fact Act compliance, as opposed to the solutions. For the first time - I heard a different perspective. They told me that, generally speaking that this has also been their experience, but in the last few days, that has changed. They said that many of their largest customers are starting to do their research and finding out how big of an issue this really is. They said that normally, their clients manually review 1-5% of their accounts for fraud, and it is finally dawning on them, that if they don't figure this out, they could suddenly see that number increase to 20-40%!! Ouch. Point is - it sounds like some of the major banks and issuers are beginning to get focused on the solution. 'Bout time. My head hurts from banging it against the wall.

This Fact Act stuff is changing faster than the weather. By the way - the deep freeze up here in Minnesota has finally given us a bit of a reprieve.

A.E>>>