High Street footwear giant Footasylum has taken steps to sign up to Claims Detect Online, our new tool which allows retailers to spot suspicious claims and persistent refund requests from online shoppers.

The company, which was established in 2005, has more than 65 stores across the UK and counts global brands such as Nike and Adidas among its roster. It is already a member of the award-winning National Business Crime Solution (NBCS).

With more than half of British retail businesses selling online, conservative estimates put the cost of GLIT (Goods Lost in Transit) at £400 million per year, with £40 being the average cost of a claim.

Research conducted by Transactis and The Logistics Manager has also revealed that just 13 per cent of retailers were confident they could identify a genuine claim from a false claim.

Richard Hodson, Footasylum’s operations director, said CDO will help his business spot these spurious claims more easily.

He said: “We’re already members of NBCS from a retail point of view and were keen to add the option to capture fraud on our web orders by sharing data with other businesses experiencing the same issues as us.

“Our objective is to identify serial offenders in respect of fraudulent ‘non-delivery’ claims and this tool will give us the ability to refuse refunds with confidence, including the ability to support our case should it end up with the ombudsman.

“There are a large number of refunds or ‘re-orders’ we have to process where we might suspect a fraudulent claim but are not confident enough to refuse the refund, in case the customer is actually legitimate. CDO provides an extra layer of confidence that potentially pushes us over the line to refuse the claim.”

Built-in fraud detection

Footasylum already uses built-in fraud detection tools as part of its payment processing system and some machine learning analytics on the checkout. It says using CDO is an additional step, which gives another level of protection.

“We’re hoping to find serial claimants who are attempting to defraud Footasylum, along with other businesses. By sharing data, we all win,” added Richard.

“The test data certainly identified a number of refunds we had processed that, had we had CDO, we would have had the confidence to refuse the refund to the customer.

“We think the tool will also allow us to gift-wrap cases for police or civil recovery.”

Simran Baghara, fraud and legal services manager for Claims Detect Online, said: “Attracting a well-known, successful brand such as Footasylum to our platform is a real feather in the cap and a demonstration of the potential businesses see in it.

“When we carried out our proof of concept in 2017 it was a major success, achieved with only a handful of claims. Every time a leading brand signs up, we are casting the net wider and wider and gathering invaluable data in the fight against fraudulent claims.”

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