In today’s world of e-commerce and online interactions and transactions, Knowing Your Customer goes far beyond verifying an address and phone number. Big data and analytics are essential to not only enhancing the customer experience and close the deal, but to avoid fraud, prevent money-laundering schemes under BSA-AML, and mitigate risk—all while staying within regulatory confines. Whooster’s OWL technology helps businesses from real estate to retail and from banking to insurance by fusing data and analytics to meet your challenges in an easy-to-use, time-saving, customizable package.
As stated in a Treasury Department report, the U.S. has a “large, complex, and open financial system, making it a destination for legitimate trade and investment, but also a target for illicit activity and actors”. While the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and Anti-Money Laundering laws are clear, criminals and terrorist organizations continue to look for novel ways to launder “dirty” money.
Recently, several large, global banks have been exposed for funneling trillions of dollars of drug cartel and other illicitly-gained money. According to a news report, “$2.4 trillion in illicit funds are laundered each year, but authorities detect less than 1%.”
Using Whooster’s capabilities, a small financial institution in Nebraska detected an illicit scheme. A local business made regular deposits of relatively small amounts. The bank manager became suspicious when the business owner made a large investment in new ovens for his less- than-thriving pizzeria, with payments going to a new restaurant supply company.
Whooster’s integrated real-time and historical data sets enabled the bank to detect the money- laundering scheme, showing that, in addition to other irregularities, the supplier was a shell company owned by the nephew of the pizza owner’s wife. Moreover, it was found that the nephew had a meth charge in Oklahoma 10 years earlier. Not only was the bank saved from regulatory violations, law enforcement investigated the pizzeria owner, the nephew, and several co-conspirators for drug trafficking.
Just as banking and financial services may be susceptible to criminal money-laundering activities, so can the real estate industry. Whooster’s capabilities help real estate companies, brokers, and agents protect themselves through aggregate data that flags unusual third-party involvement; titling through a third party; foreign purchases; suspicious transactions (such as purchases inconsistent with purchaser’s income or from an unusual source of income), and/or a history of criminal activities.
There’s another (and happier) way in which Whooster can help both you and your clients. Prefill Applications help ensure faster, more accurate mortgage applications by quickly authenticating applicant identity, validating income and assets, and preventing fraud—while also streamlining the process. This eliminates the need for hours of manual verification, and reduces the chance of incorrect information and client frustration with lengthy applications that asked a great deal of personal information.
A couple wanted to buy a house in the competitive New Jersey real estate market. As first-time homebuyers, they were daunted by the mortgage application process. In addition to missing vital information on the form, they lost out on the house they wanted. Moreover, their agent lost both his commission and his clients. Through their new agent, they were able to pre-qualify quickly. Whooster’s prefill applications tools helped by prefilling critical information rapidly, efficiently, and accurately and allowed the mortgage company to validate the information in real-time. The couple was able to find the home they wanted and seal the deal.
Between 2010 and the end of 2018, growth in U.S. online shopping sales increased by 313 percent. With a shift to online purchases since the pandemic, there has been 146 percent year- over-year growth in e-commerce sales. All-in-all, U.S. online sales are projected to reach more than $709 billion by the end of 2020. Unprecedented growth also means unprecedented potential for fraud, and increased expectations from customers.
For e-commerce merchants, card-not-present sales mean a higher risk of fraud. Theft identity and stolen cardholder information, including name, and credit card number, expiration date, and card expiration date makes fraudulent online purchases easier than traditional in-store, card-present transactions.
In the case of an online home and garden retailer, a small order was received from a regular customer, but was being shipped to another address. Since the customer in question was a contractor, it wasn’t suspect. Within a few days, the “customer” placed a much larger order that was being shipped to yet another address. The online retailer had recently signed up for Whooster’s data solutions, which automatically found that the “customer” wasn’t who he said he was. The actual customer was a victim of identity theft. The sale was immediately stopped and the actual customer was notified, saving both the retailer and the real contractor from substantial losses.
Whether an online or brick-and-mortar retailer, Whooster helps prevent fraud and enhances the customer experience by providing real-time information through rapid onboarding, quick and secure verification, and seamless transactions.
Whooster is not a consumer reporting agency and the Whooster services are not provided by "consumer reporting agencies," as the term is defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C § 1681, et seq.) ("FCRA") and do not constitute "consumer reports," as that term is defined in the FCRA. The Whooster service may not be used in whole or in part as factor in determining eligibility for credit, insurance, employment or for any other purpose under the FCRA.
