Identity Resolution Daily

By the Infoglide Team

Windsor Star: OLG coughs up cash

“The insider policy is to guard against fraud, such as a retailer who tells a customer a ticket is not a winner and then tries to claim the prize. In the spring of 2007, a provincial ombudsman issued a scathing report on the OLG and said Ontario store owners and their families had collected tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent claims.”

MarketWatch: Worldwide thefts cost retailers US $104 billion annually - Survey

“This year’s survey, the most complete analysis of global shrink ever conducted, reports key findings on retail shrinkage and crime in 36 countries and on five continents, based on data from a confidential survey of 920 large retailers with combined sales of U.S. $814 billion and 115,612 operating retail outlets…’This sum represents a tax imposed on honest people by retail criminals of $229.73 per household or $71.12 for every single person in the 36 countries surveyed,’ said Professor Bamfield, Director of the Centre for Retail Research.”

Jackson Citizen Patriot: Kids learn online dangers

“Internet predators lurk on networking Web sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, or in chat rooms, looking for young victims. ‘Everybody you meet online is an Internet stranger,’ Malik Williams, an Internet-safety presenter from the Michigan Cyber Safety Initiative, told more than 50 fifth-graders Tuesday at Concord Elementary School. ‘That’s why it’s important to keep yourself safe.’”

Bucyrus TelegraphForum: Bucyrus experiences rash of break-ins

“‘There is a new trend in what we call e-fencing. Thieves are selling their stolen items on the Internet versus just selling them outright. They can get up to 70 percent or more of the value if they sell on the Internet versus selling them on the streets, where they only get about 30 percent of the value,’ Teets said.”

SFGate: Ex-S.F. firefighter’s workers’ comp problem

“Indeed, if Hijjawi were trying to hide her fitness quest, she wasn’t doing a very good job. Our own Google search turned up records showing her running in marathons in Lake Tahoe, Los Angeles, Honolulu and elsewhere. From 2001 to 2006, according to records on the Web site Athlinks, Hijjawi ran in no fewer than a dozen marathons. And her biography on another site shows she was taking on even bigger challenges, including the Canada 2005 Ultraman super triathlon competition - in which competitors swim 6.2 miles, ride a bike for 170 miles and run 52 miles, twice the distance of a marathon. Completing it took her more than 33 hours.”

Bunker Blog: Update On Cops Involved In Major Shoplifting Ring

“Kevin Burchell and Clifford Barber, both police officers, worked with two others, one of them an employee at the Walmart the items were taken from; to get up to $200,000.00 worth of merchandise out of the store and onto an eBay site. According to the latest report, Barber was the mastermind behind the scheme, and sold the items on eBay and to friends and acquaintances.”

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By the Infoglide Team

CIOZone: What To Do About Bad Data

“The amount of data is doubling every 12 to 18 months—but much of it is inaccurate, incomplete or otherwise flawed. And bad data costs organizations between 10 to 20 percent of revenue. But there are steps CIOs can take to fix the data problem.”

ZDNet: Data Quality - Upstream or Downstream?

“How come most companies start worrying about the quality of your data only when it’s already dirty and in use? How come it doesn’t occur to them that the quality of data needs to be thought through before it’s actually captured? Even at the early stages of data capturing, data quality already plays an important role in the future of the company.”

Star-Ledger: eBay makes bid to oppose limits on online sales

“The big-box retail chains say they are concerned eBay and similar online sales sites offer professional shoplifters a largely anonymous venue for e-fencing their stolen goods. But eBay says brick-and-mortar retailers are using the argument as a ploy to try and stifle competition from online sellers. Coming as it does at the threshold of the holiday shopping season, there is a lot at stake for both sides in this Goliath vs. Goliath battle for the hearts and wallets of American consumers.”

CNW Group: Protecting lottery customers

“Over the past 12 months, OLG has taken significant action toward protecting lottery customers from theft and fraud.”

Your Industry News: Stopgap Bill Includes $101B For DOD Procurement

“The $630 billion-plus stopgap spending bill signed into law by President Bush includes $487.7 billion to fund the Defense Department and more than $40 billion to fund the Homeland Security Department through the end of fiscal 2009.”

Vancouver Sun: The war on retail crime

“Technology is becoming sophisticated enough to recognize when conventional patterns are broken, such as a door that is only entered by employees coming from a certain direction.”

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By the Infoglide Team

Lottery Scam: Lottery Scam Watch - Keep Track of Your Tickets

“The ticket was bought in May. When the ticket holder came to the store for verification, the clerk allegedly told him he was mistaken and kept the ticket. A police report contends that Melissa Trahan, 27, sent the winning slip to her mother in Mississippi. That woman, Gwen Landry, drove to the state capital, Baton Rouge, and cashed it in for the $800,000.”

Hub Solution Designs: Customer Data Quality

“Sometimes, attempts are made to programmatically improve data quality within a customer record, but because of tight deadlines, data quality across the file is usually not given serious attention.”

CT.gov: Waterford Town Employee Charged with Workers’ Compensation Fraud

“The warrant alleges that Mr. Hall ‘intentionally misrepresented his claimed injury and intentionally failed to disclose his employment and wage earnings while collecting disability benefits.’”

Homeland Security Watch: Senate Introduces its First DHS Authorization Bill

“The Senate bill elevates the assistant secretary for policy to the position of Under Secretary for Policy, to ensure policy coordination across the Department, it strengthens the authorities of the Office of International Affairs at DHS, and it authorizes the National Cyber Security Center, along with a private sector board to advise the Secretary on cyber security policy.”

Workers Compensation: California Fines Auto Body Shops Without Workers’ Comp Insurance

“Failure to carry workers’ compensation insurance is fraud, plain and simple. This is a form of workers’ compensation fraud – not having the appropriate coverage – is more common than you might think.”

Central Coast News: Santa Cruz police crack large commercial burglary case at Safeway

“Safeway loss prevention officers notified Santa Cruz police on Sept. 9 that the company’s store on Morrissey Boulevard had lost a significant amount of merchandise to theft and store managers suspected that an employee, Emanuel Anthony Ruiz, 30, was stealing merchandise. He allegedly took cosmetics, shoes, clothing and over-the-counter pharmaceutical items, including medications, from the store, police reported. Ruiz, with the help of the three others arrested, was then selling the items online, police said.”

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Department of Homeland Security: Homeland Security and State Departments Announce WHTI Land and Sea Final Rule

“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of State (DOS) announced today the final rule for the land and sea portion of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), a core 9/11 Commission recommendation. The WHTI final rule requires travelers to present a passport or other approved secure document denoting citizenship and identity for all land and sea travel into the United States.”

Retail Solutions Online: Real-Time Loss Prevention: Changing The Game In Fraud

“Aberdeen selected three key performance criteria to distinguish Best-in-Class companies from industry Average and Laggards that are frequently measured within the retail industry. . . . In addition to the specific recommendations in Chapter 3 of this report to achieve Best-in-Class performance, companies must:

• Impliment Business Intelligence(BI) tools and predictive analytics to measure, analyze, and report theft and fraud data trends;
• Improve the focus on cash asset protection and access control systems to prevent internal theft incidence”

Evolution of Security: Checkpoint Changes Coming

“Technology is a wonderful thing but it’s not an overnight process - it must be invented, funded, built, tested, bought, and deployed.”

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Rocky Mountain News: ‘E-fencing’ bill to target organized retail crime

“Baby formula, gift cards and cold medicine could not be sold at online auction Web sites in Colorado under a proposal that will be introduced in the legislature today that’s intended to crack down on Internet fencing rings. . . . Retailers say ‘e-fencing‘ laws are needed to combat organized retail crime, which racks up an estimated $522 million a year in losses in Colorado alone and $37 billion nationwide. Internet sites such as eBay, the world’s biggest online auction site, are particularly good outlets for thieves because they can sell the stolen items anonymously, said Chris Howes, president of the Colorado Retail Council. . . . Congress last year held hearings on eBay’s role in monitoring itself for stolen goods. The Coalition Against Organized Retail Crime, whose members include Wal-Mart, Target and Macy’s, has been lobbying for legislation to require online auction sites to disclose more information on ‘high-volume’ sellers and post serial numbers for products.”

newsday.com: 61 People Arrested In NYC Stolen Car Insurance Fraud Sting

“Sixty-one people, including a New York City police officer, were charged Thursday in a $1.7 million insurance fraud sting. New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said those charged paid a middleman to dispose of their vehicles and falsely reported them stolen to collect large insurance settlements.”

PogoWasRight.org: One year later: Five takeaways from the TJX breach

“One year ago today, The TJX Companies Inc. disclosed what has turned out to be the largest information security breach involving credit and debit card data — thus far, at least. . . . Here, on the one-year anniversary of the breach becoming known, are five takeways for security managers.”

PRWeb: Employees Trump Organized Crime as Source of Retail Shrink, Study Finds

“It’s incredibly hard to create a customer-centric store when your core belief is that your employees, who are your company’s face to the world, will steal from you at the first opportunity. Nonetheless, according to a new RSR Benchmark report, sponsored by Micros Retail and Sensormatic, “Winning Trends in Loss Prevention: Benchmark study 2008″, this is the pervasive retailing condition. . . . ‘New Loss Prevention initiatives have to be cost-effective in both human and financial terms’, said Paula Rosenblum, Managing Director and author of the report. ‘Retailers are looking to add business intelligence to existing technologies and provide exception-based reports from video and text-based data to the responsible party. They believe new LP initiatives can reduce their shrink by 10-25%.’”

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By Johnny Norris, Director UK Markets

[Note: Today’s post is from our offices ‘across the pond’ in the UK.]

News this week from ComputerworldUK tells us that large merchants have seen an increase of over 10% over twelve months in fraud through their online businesses. Notably, a considerable piece of this issue has to do with the use of multiple identities (33% of large retailers saw this) and the difficult problem of internal theft.

One of the issues facing multi-channel or Internet retailers is that online fraud is often quite different from store based problems. It’s seen by perpetrators as anonymous, and it is considerably easier to appear to hide identity. Combine this with the ability to ‘pass on’ goods via online auction sites and retailers are facing attack from external and internal sources (often combined). According to the CyberSource research, many retailers are willing to invest in technology to tackle the issue, but most solutions are based on exception and don’t always tackle the huge identity issue.

But, there is good news! Traditionally, store based retailers in the UK have not collected much in the way of customer or returns data (certainly as compared to US retailers), but the online/multi-channel boom is changing that. Retailers now face the issue of what information to store and how to deal with the deluge of it. Fraud analysts haven’t increased in number, so retailers must find a way to harvest ALL their information sources (whether it be employee or customer data) and provide their fraud/security teams with prioritized, high quality information on those using multiple identities, or even working in an organized way. Organized Retail Crime (ORC) wasn’t mentioned in the article, but this is a key area and often the way it can be detected is to identify links or relationships between customers or customers and employees.

Identity resolution technology (AKA entity resolution and analysis technology) that can identify the use of multiple identities and detect fraudulent relationships (or ORC) is now in existence, but not many companies offer the full range of elements. Importantly, this technology can be used to look at the problem of e-fencing via online auction sites as well. Looking for the subtle matches between stock that has gone missing and, say, an online vendor with details a lot like an employee may be a critical step in stemming this fast growing fraud problem.

Can retailers accept a 10% year on year rise in fraud? We think they shouldn’t have to.

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Fox Business: High Shrink Takes a Toll on the Bottomline of Retail Enterprises

“Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS: 13.90, +0.17, +1.23%), surveyed 680 retail enterprises in October 2007 and found that on an average, 60% of retailers surveyed recorded year-over-year shrink or write-off of at least 1.75% of their total inventory (as a percent of sales), further compounding existing theft and fraud-related complexities in retail. Another alarming trend is that almost a third of retailers (30%) have reported between 2% to 6% invalid transactions (unauthorized and fraudulent customer transactions as a percentage of total transactions). This indicates that retailers may be faced with high transaction fraud incidence due to organized retail crime, data loss, and dishonest employees. . . . Cash asset protection, real-time video and transaction data intelligence, and access control are some of the pillars that enable retailers across different sub-segments to build an agile and responsive loss prevention environment.”

Yahoo! News: New ID rules may complicate air travel

“Millions of air travelers may find going through airport security much more complicated this spring, as the Bush administration heads toward a showdown with state governments over post-Sept. 11 rules for new driver’s licenses. By May, the dispute could leave millions of people unable to use their licenses to board planes, but privacy advocates called that a hollow threat by federal officials.”

PogoWasRight.org: De: Citizen’s rights activists intend to prevent EU plans to record passengers’ flight details

“German Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung (Work Group on Data Retention) has announced a constitutional appeal if the German government agrees to back plans by the EU Commission to retain Passenger Name Records for 13 years.”

WashingtonTechnology: Web extra: States face Real ID privacy dilemma

“‘If you centralize it, it would be easier to manage in terms of security and privacy,’ said Harold Kocken, business solution manager of BearingPoint’s national motor vehicle solutions group. ‘There would be fewer people with the possibility of interfering with the database.’ . . . The verification grant program will expand a pilot project run by the National Association for Public Health Statistics and Information Systems. Named the Electronic Verification of Vital Events, it is operating with three states that can originate queries and nine states that can respond to the queries. Using the system, operators type information for verification, such as someone’s full name and date of birth, and the system automatically processes the query to determine if there is a match with the original birth certificate. The response is either ‘match’ or ‘no match.’ It attaches notes about suspected misspellings and near matches.”

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[Post from Infoglide Software] When Technology Turns Tradition on its Head

“The rapid march of technology drives rapid change and, in some ways, the use of technology begins to undermine people’s habits that have endured for years and years.”

The State: Gift card scams rile industry

“But gift cards sold on Web sites can be fraudulent, said Evan Schuman, editor of New Jersey-based Storefrontbacktalk.com, a blog focusing on retail technology and e-commerce. ‘Retailers love them, consumers love them and the bad guys love them,’ he said of gift cards. Although no independent organization tracks gift-card fraud, various sources estimate that between 2 percent and 30 percent of all cards sold on secondary sites are tainted with illegal activity. Plastic Jungle, which allows shoppers to buy, sell and trade gift cards, decided to tackle security concerns head on, said CEO and founder Tina Henson.”

FCW.com: Bush administration ready to release revised Real ID regs

“The Bush administration will release Jan. 11 a revised set of minimum federal standards that states must meet when issuing driver’s licenses and identification cards as mandated by the Real ID Act of 2005, said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.”

azcentral.com: Shoppers face strict return policies

“Shoppers should expect some headaches when returning gifts after Christmas, according to consumer education Web site ConsumerWorld.org. ‘Stores’ return policy remains strict and complicated,’ said Edward Dworsky, founder of the resource guide.”

beye.com - Business Intelligence Network: Improving Business Intelligence: The Six Sigma Way

“Six Sigma business intelligence (BI) is a customer-focused, measurement-based approach to improving business intelligence. . . . Six Sigma means putting the customer first and striving for a product that is near perfection. Six Sigma principles have been used in the business world for years and have produced significant and frequently amazing results.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Study finds racial profiling of shoppers is real, but it goes unreported

“The results of the survey indicated that they don’t like it but they tend to let it go. Despite feeling angry, shocked, sad or embarrassed, 82 percent of those who said they had been racially profiled while shopping told the survey takers they never reported the experience to anyone other than their family and friends. About half still made a purchase at the store, said Dr. Gabbidon, who collaborated on the research with George Higgins from the University of Louisville.”

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BusinessWeek: Shoplifters Get Smarter

“Such theft has grown steadily in recent years, merchants and law enforcement officials say. ‘We have witnessed a steady increase in organized retail crime,’ says David Hill, a Montgomery County (Md.) police detective. ‘These groups operate with the training of a paramilitary.’”

blip.tv: ETech 2007 - Jeff Jonas

Jeff Jonas of IBM presents at the Emerging Technology Conference on what IBM calls entity analytics (otherwise known as identity resolution). Gartner recently began calling this category entity resolution and analysis.

silicon.com: Data sharing ‘could sap public confidence’

“Sir David Varney, the Prime Minister’s adviser on public-service transformation, said the nature of the data to be shared between government departments was still under discussion. Varney said: ‘There has to be a lot of careful thought about what data needs to be shared. If names, addresses and national insurance numbers were shared, people would benefit from a more personalised service.’”

YouTube: Buy Your Stuff Back on eBay!

KBTV’s report on buying stolen items on eBay.

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[Post from Infoglide Software] The Internet: Treat or Trick?

“E-fencing will get you about $.70 on the dollar, and it’s less risky because there is a certain degree of anonymity. Bottom line, it’s become a big problem for the retail industry. So much so that retailers are taking it to the Hill. Several retail execs recently testified before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security about the problems of [organized retail crime] (ORC) and e-fencing.”

CarInsurance.com: Arrests Made in Crash Scam; Police Swoop in Insurance Fraud Inquiry

“The probe centres on a large number of claims made in the Merseyside area two years ago by people connected to a large communications company. . . . Allianz Insurance fraud manager Mihir Pandya said: ‘We have a policy of pro-actively managing fraud and have specific teams in place to identify and focus on organised fraud.’ . . . Chairman of the insurance fraud bureau John Beadle said: ‘This operation is a key example of the success that can be achieved when the public and private sectors are working collectively. We are sending a clear message to those criminals involved in ‘crash for cash’ scams that we are not a soft touch and they will be caught.’”

FOXNews.com: Bra Bandits Steal $4,000 Worth of Victoria’s Secret Items in Tennessee

“More than $4,000 worth of underwear was stolen from a Victoria’s Secret store in Murfreesboro and police are trying to determine if the theft is connected with a ring of thieves hitting stores in other states. . . . Police said the items could end up being sold online, or at a flea market or possibly sent out of the country.”

Business Intelligence Low Down: Top 10 Largest Databases in the World

“There are currently organizations around the world in the business of amassing collections of things, and their collections number into and above the trillions. In many cases these collections, or databases, consist of items we use every day.”

Southern Maryland Online: Md. Detective Calls for Internet Controls to Curb Retail Crime

“‘Sophisticated or not, what all of these thieves have in common is they are career criminals usually hired by bulk buyers or ringleaders with specific products in mind,’ [Officer David Hill, a retail crime specialist,] said. ‘They have ’shopping lists,’ if you will.’ The comments came during a hearing of the House Judiciary’s crime subcommittee focused on developing a response to organized retail crime, which leads to an estimated $30 billion in losses each year, according to the National Retail Federation. [Hill] recalled one college student who was arrested on Dec. 24, 2005, for stealing more than $40,000 in merchandise from 12 stores by swapping UPC codes. ‘By his own admission, the student made over $50,000 auctioning off stolen merchandize on eBay,’ Hill said.”

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