Study Finds Call Center Fraud Has Shifted to the IVR

Fighting fraud is a bit like playing whack-a-mole: just when you think you’ve got it covered, the fraudsters find a new way to initiate fraud. In contact centers, fraud is a serious problem. While fraud cases rise, they’re happening concurrently with rising use of call centers by customers. A recent study by Pindrop noted that call volumes grew in excess of over 800 percent in the second quarter of 2020, likely due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, creating major challenges for the centers and their employees, not the least of which is combatting fraud.

Similar to legitimate customers, fraudsters are having a hard time getting through to live agents. To get around the problem, they’re increasingly using interactive voice response (IVR) to try and siphon money from customers and businesses.

“Due to high call volumes and reduced agent capacity, fraud occurrences at the agent was reduced to a rate 1 in 1074 calls,” according to the Pindrop report’s authors. “As the IVR grew more and more capable, it also became an increasingly important hotspot of fraudster exploitation, similar to any other customer endpoint.”

Digital thieves are using IVR technology to engagement in unemployment pre-paid card theft: it has been estimated that a full 10 percent of the $360 billion in CARES Act unemployment funding was mostly lost due to rampant unemployment fraud.

Overall, some 57 percent of fraud detection and prevention decision makers reported experiencing an increase in fraud attacks, and 66 percent reported seeing new types of fraud. Much of this new fraud is centered around the IVR.

“Using advanced algorithms, fraudsters auto dial IVRs, crack PINs, DOBs, and the last 4 of a SSN in a matter of hours,” according to a recent article in VentureBeat. “The IVR has become a critical piece to the account takeover process, with 57 percent of call center firms reporting incidents of IVR account mining.”

The report found that only 34 percent of firms – just over one-third – indicating that they’re able to discover and stop fraud in real time with a high degree of confidence and accuracy. This leaves a lot of windows open for call center fraudsters to climb through. 

Edited by Luke Bellos