Rafael Lourenco

Rafael Lourenco

Rafael Lourenco is Executive Vice President at ClearSale, a card-not-present fraud prevention operation that helps retailers increase sales and eliminate chargebacks before they happen. The company’s proprietary technology and in-house staff of seasoned analysts provide an end-to-end outsourced fraud detection solution for online retailers to achieve industry-high approval rates while virtually eliminating false positives. Follow on twitter at @ClearSaleUS or visit http://clear.sale/.

The Online Retailer’s Holiday Fraud Prevention and CX Checklist

Online consumer behavior and expectations have evolved rapidly since the start of the pandemic, and they’re going into the holiday shopping season with higher expectations than ever for great experiences. Now that two-thirds of consumers say they’re “likely to switch companies for a better digital experience,” getting customer experience (CX) right is critical to maintaining…

More Than 2 Years Into the Pandemic, What's Different in E-Commerce?

Retailers know the pandemic transformed e-commerce with a flood of orders from existing customers, brand-new online shoppers, and consumers from other countries. Of course, order volume and customer profiles aren’t the only e-commerce changes since March 2020. Understanding the nuances of those changes is critical for online retail success now. To get a clearer picture…

How Backtesting Helps Merchants Find Their Ideal Fraud Prevention Solution

Every merchant needs protection from payment fraud, especially as online payment fraud keeps increasing. Juniper Research estimates that e-commerce merchants will lose more than $20 billion to fraudsters this year, an 18 percent rise over 2020, when fraud spiked dramatically because of the pandemic. Fortunately, there are many solutions on the market that offer merchants…

QR Code Payments Are Convenient, Great for Distancing, and Targets for Fraud

QR code payments have finally caught on in the U.S. after lagging behind adoption in China and other Asian markets. Why the change? The need for contactless payments brought on by the pandemic sent retailers looking for inexpensive, quick-to-implement ways to let customers pay from a distance, and QR codes fit the bill. However, with…

Why Mexico May Be Your Next Big Cross-Border Market

For U.S.-based e-commerce businesses looking to expand internationally, Mexico is an appealing option. Its consumer base is young and mobile savvy. Internet use and online shopping are on the rise. And based on a recent survey for ClearSale by Sapio Research, Mexican consumers’ customer experience concerns and expectations are similar in many ways to those…

Why Manual Review is Key to Retailers’ Defense Against Fraud, Part 2

Manual fraud review isn’t as old-fashioned as you might think. It reduces false positives and customer churn. It also helps artificial intelligence-driven fraud-screening systems get smarter. Manual review can even work for merchants like digital content providers that need to make real-time order decisions. In part one of this series, I wrote about how manual…

Why Manual Review is Key to Retailers’ Defense Against Fraud, Part 1

Preventing fraud and chargebacks is a constant challenge for online sellers, especially as card-not-present (CNP) fraud costs keep rising. Fraud-detection technology is evolving fast to keep pace with e-commerce growth and the increasing sophistication of organized fraud attacks. However, one element of online fraud prevention still requires human expertise — manual review of orders flagged…

Do We Have Enough Data Scientists to Protect Against E-Commerce Fraud?

The biggest e-commerce challenge of 2019 may be balancing marketing and sales channel innovation with the need for increasingly sophisticated fraud prevention. This will be especially challenging because fraud protection, like many aspects of business today, requires experience and fluency in working with data, and there's a growing shortage of data scientists across the U.S.…

Beware of These 5 E-Commerce CNP Fraud Trends

E-commerce is booming, but so is card-not-present (CNP) fraud. In fact, CNP fraud is growing at 14 percent per year because fraudsters have become more sophisticated about leveraging all the stolen data that’s out there. While this isn’t great news for online merchants, knowledge is power. Here are five fraud trends every e-commerce seller needs…

Questions Every Merchant Should Ask Before Using Their E-Commerce Platform's Fraud Protection

As fraudsters continue to target online retailers, more e-commerce platforms are offering fraud protection to screen their merchants’ transactions. In some cases, these programs offer to cover the cost of completed fraud and handle chargeback disputes. But is platform-based protection all that merchants need to protect their revenue and maintain customer relationships in an environment…

How Visa's New Chargeback Rules Will Help Merchants Fight E-Commerce Fraud

April 15 was a big day for American taxpayers and a big day for merchants and card issuers, too. That's the date when Visa rolled out its new worldwide dispute management process, Visa Claims Resolution (VCR). It's a major overhaul of the way Visa accepts, processes and tracks chargebacks, and it's been live in New…

How Small E-Tailers Can Thrive in the Age of Retail Consolidation

Do small and new online retailers have a chance to succeed anymore? Industry analysts say that 2017's parade of acquisitions by major retailers — Whole Foods by Amazon.com, Kate Spade by Coach, HSN by QVC, among others — are making it harder for smaller retailers to survive. How can SMB sellers compete with these players’ same-day…

4 Fraud Prevention Tips for the Holiday Season

The holiday shopping season is always a big gift to fraudsters, meanwhile retailers rarely get what's on their list — i.e. more revenue, fewer chargebacks and stronger customer relationships. Unfortunately, the holiday season fraud problem is growing year-over-year. There was a huge spike in e-commerce fraud between 2015 and last year — 33 percent, according…