Stumble it!

PayPal has announced an addition to its fraud defense program with a $169M purchase of Israeli based Fraud Sciences. PayPal, whose services allow two people to conduct safe financial transactions online, has often been criticized for being too lenient with its anti fraud measures. The purchase of Fraud Services, while not only being practical, is also quite a public statement. The deal, which should be finalized by the end of February, will allow PayPal the ability to distinguish authentic and fraudulent transaction. This will also allow eBay, PayPal’s parent company, to present a much safer and trusting bid market for both merchants and individuals. Fraud Services employs programs called SpotLight VFX and SpotLight T2T, which allow online vendors more control of not only combating fraudulent behavior, but also in allowing legitimate transactions that only give the impression of suspicion to be conduct, thus increasing sales. PayPal spokeswoman Sarah Gorman explains that the current PayPal fraud prevention program and the ones created by Fraud Services are similar and will be relatively easy integrate. Fraud Sciences boasts that its system is 99.9% accurate and uses a customer’s digital history to analyze and except online financial transactions. That however, appears to be only a portion of the system’s analytical dogma and Gorman was rather tight lipped about the rest of the application. Apparently, this is only eBay’s first in what the auction giant hopes will be series of acquisitions to bolster its security and improve public trust. Fraud Services will continue to operate out of Tel Aviv, Israel, with the majority of employees being offered positions within the eBay-PayPal family. Last year, PayPal began offering a one-time numeric pass code with a 30 second lifespan, all in the hopes of deterring cyber pirates. PayPal has also urged email service providers to block incoming email with out digital signatures. While this would possibly prevent scam emails from reaching ones inbox, email providers have yet to make a true commitment regarding this matter. Even with PayPal’s efforts, the most plausible fraud prevention program out there remains internet savvy consumers who think before they click.