Westpac has started automatically blocking suspect online transactions from overseas retailers deemed high-risk of being a scam.
When customers make an online card payment and a scam is detected, the transaction will be automatically blocked, and the customer notified via SMS.
The move comes after a trial last year with select online stores with dubious marketing claims, focusing on diet pill retailers. During this time, more than 11,000 potential scams were blocked for 4000 customers, saving more than $1.2 million.
Since January, the bank has extended the practice. If a customer believes the payment is legitimate, they can contact Westpac’s dedicated scam assistance team to request the payment proceeds. In over 99% of cases, this does not happen.
The bank's scam detection technology analyses transaction patterns, merchant behaviours and attributes, as well as previous reports from other customers, to dynamically add and remove merchants from high-risk lists.
Merchants being blocked are exclusively registered overseas, and most commonly sell diet pills, nutrient supplements, online dating subscriptions, music subscriptions or business support services.
Ben Young, head, fraud, Westpac, says: "The technology adds another layer of security for our customers shopping online and intervenes when they are making a purchase with a suspect retailer. The new capability builds on our existing 24/7 fraud detection systems which focus on preventing transactions on stolen or copied cards."