Digital Mall, voted South Africa`s best online retailer, has busted a major Internet fraud syndicate.
In a continued effort to rid South Africa of Internet credit card fraud, Digital Mall has yet again made a major break through in fighting this form of crime.
In June of last year, Digital Mall was responsible for South Africa`s first Internet credit card fraud arrest, which resulted in a successful prosecution.
This time the fraud operation ran deeper.
An order of R35 000 was placed through Makro, one of Digital Mall`s retailers, on 19 March 2001. Using fraud prevention processes, Digital Mall`s customer service centre became suspicious of the order. There were a number of triggers that were set off, identifying the order as possibly fraudulent.
"These factors are a combination of input from Nedcor`s Fraud Division and Digital Mall`s own internal processes that have been carefully developed over the last two years," says Garin Toren, marketing director of Digital Mall.
The Nedcor fraud division, which has assisted in training Digital Mall staff to detect fraud, was contacted and were requested to assist in setting up the `sting` operation to catch the fraudsters. Digital Mall, the fraud unit of Nedcor, the Standard Bank fraud unit and SAP detectives, arranged a drop within three hours at a petrol station near Gold Reef City. One of the suspects was quickly apprehended.
"Digital Mall`s Call Centre technology, which includes the latest in digital recording facilities, supplied voice recordings of the suspect placing the order to the Standard Bank Fraud Division. They have already arrested one suspect internally and further arrests are likely. Through the recordings and our call line identification system, the exact person within the bank could be pinpointed," said Toren.
"It is our intention to continue to work closely with our retail clients, the local banks to ensure that attempted fraudsters and the South African Police take Internet fraud very seriously."
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