Why Fraud Doesn’t Have To Be The ‘Cost Of Doing Business’

Most retailers have been conditioned to think that fraud is simply an unavoidable cost of doing business. And their budgets reflect that. Forter Cofounder and CEO Michael Reitblat tells Karen Webster that’s simply an antiquated way to look at fraud — a perspective which doesn’t challenge fraud prevention providers to do better. What might ‘better’ look like? Like giving retailers a way to manage the amount of revenue lost to fraud year in and year out to a nice round number: zero. Retailers have been conditioned to think that fraud is simply an unavoidable cost of doing business. And, year in and year out, they factor into their budgets whatever percentage of sales they are comfortable writing off due to not only fraud but also fraud prevention, which has traditionally been strongly risk-averse and often blocks good sales, as well as fraudulent ones. Merchants have essentially accepted the fact that they will just keep losing money to fraudsters, no matter how they try to beat them back.