Accertify CASE STUDY Accertify Helped Southwest Airlines to Quickly Eradicate Online Gift Card Fraud

By adding gift card screening to its existing Accertify Fraud Management solution, Southwest Airlines virtually eliminated gift card fraud in less than two months and leveraged automation with an 80% reduction in expert staffing requirements. The Situation
Southwest Airlines is a pioneer of e-commerce in the air travel industry. It was the first airline to establish a home page on the Internet and southwest.com is the most visited airline web site (ComScore, April 2012). The site was the conduit for booking 81% of passenger revenues during the fourth quarter of 2012. As with other e-commerce retailers, gift cards also constitute an important source of revenue. The southwestgiftcard program launched in 2006 and, with 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 nations largest carrier in terms of originating passengers boarded, and including whollyowned 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 Commonwealth of 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. its success, began attracting fraudsters by 2010, according to Brandon Adams, Manager of Ticketing Operations at Southwest Airlines. Fraud traffic spiked up during 2011 and 2012 as 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 Adams. 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 Airlines has reduced total attempted fraud by approximately 50 percent. Adding screening processes for gift cards was a natural evolution of the companys 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. Consequently, fraudsters were able to leverage the 24-hour gap by booking and flying with a gift card that was purchased with a stolen credit card. After Ticketing Operations prepared a gift card feed for the Interceptas platform, Accertify 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 matter of configuration to get these results, says Adams. Accertifys support team was invaluable: once we turned on the solution, we asked 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. Accertifys service and results are just awesome! You guys rock!

Theres innovation at Accertify based on a clear understanding of what fraud is from a merchants perspective. Accertify provides us with great service because they speak our language youre truly talking fraud with them and they get it. Theyre not just an analytics company. They know how fraud management applies to our airline industry, to social media, and to retail. Thats what I appreciate. Theyve done a great job for us.

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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 immediately 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 fraud (-50%), manual review rate (-44%), and review team labor costs (-59%). The percentage of fraud prevented has increased 13%.

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 Accertifys expertise and fraud solutions to protect revenue across multiple channels and products.
Brandon Adams Manager of Ticketing Operations Southwest Airlines Co.

Gift Card Preventions - Before and After Accertify

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Preventions Chargebacks

Southwest Airlines implemented a gift card feed to Accertify in January 2013

Accertify Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of American Express, is a leading provider of fraud prevention, chargeback management, and payment gateway solutions to merchant customers spanning diverse industries worldwide. Accertifys suite of products and services help e-commerce companies grow their business by driving down the total cost of fraud, simplifying business processes, and ultimately increasing revenue. To complement these solutions, Accertify also offers its customers a best-in-breed portfolio of support, professional, and managed services that empower companies to focus on growing their business, rather than on the underlying technology of their e-commerce systems. For more information, please visit www.accertify.com.
Accertify USA World Headquarters 1075 Hawthorn Drive Itasca, IIllinois 60143 Office: 630 735 4400 Toll Free: 855 539 3560 Fax: 800 231 4915 E-mail: info@accertify . com Accertify Europe, Middle East, Africa 1st Floor Belgrave House 76 Buckingham Palace Rd. London, SW1W 9AX UK Office: +44 1273 693555 E-mail: mlong@accertify . com Accertify Latin America Ormeno & Associates Av. Libertador 2442, 4 Piso (1636) Olivos, Buenos Aires, Argentina Phone: +54 11 4711 8963 info@accertify.com
Accertify partners with Ormeno & Associates for all sales inquiries in the Latin American market.

Accertify Asia Pacific 12 Shelley Street - 9th Level Sydney, NSW 2000 Office: +612 9271 1194 Fax: +612 9271 2343 E-mail: nfox@accertify.com

The information in this document is provided for informational purposes only. Accertify, Inc. disclaims all warranties of accuracy, completeness, timeliness and fitness for a particular purpose.
2013 Accertify, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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