In 2016, those who sell or resell tickets online face extraordinary risk of fraud

Allen, TX (July 18, 2016) -- At this week's Global Business Travel Association Convention 2016 in Denver, CO, Chargeback Gurus' president Suresh Dakshina anticipates questions about the increase in scams involving use of fake credit cards to purchase tickets or set up new accounts. Dakshina and his team will be at GBTA 2016 in booth #2044.

"There's fraud in every industry, but those who sell or resell tickets online face extraordinary risk of fraud," he said in a recent post at the Chargeback Blog.

During a two-day international law enforcement operation last month, 140 individuals were detained or questioned about airline tickets purchased with stolen credit cards. The sweep, coordinated through Europol, INTERPOL and Ameripol with support from Canadian and US law enforcement, involved dozens of airlines in 43 countries. It was at least the fourth such sweep in the last three years.

And investigators say that's barely even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fraud in the travel industry.

"It's especially tricky when your customer needs overnight or even same-day delivery of tickets," explains Dakshina. "You want to provide superb service, but now you're at higher risk of fraud than just about any other kind of business."

More and more tickets bought last minute are bought with stolen credit cards. When that happens, the tickets are delivered electronically then immediately resold.

Meanwhile, so called "friendly fraud" is growing too. In the case of friendly fraud, travelers use their real identities and credit cards during ticketing, then tell the card issuer that they deserve a refund.

"Travel, hospitality and ticketing industry professionals rarely have the resources to analyze fraud or fight chargebacks," says Dakshina. "Many feel they have no choice but to write off the damages and keep going."

"That's where we come in. Whether fighting loyalty program hacks, fake tickets, friendly fraud, ticketing scams or mobile wallet schemes, Chargeback Gurus knows how to prevent and reverse many fraud-related losses."

GBTA describes its convention as "the largest gathering of business travel buyers in the world", and expects 1,500 business travel buyers to be among those who attend. On average, it says, business travel buyers who attend spend $100 million year on corporate travel.

About Chargeback Gurus
Merchants of all types hire Chargeback Gurus to help them prevent and reverse losses related to credit card chargebacks. Chargeback Gurus' chargeback representment team wins up to 83% of cases it handles. The company also lowers clients' risk by using proprietary technology, advanced analysis, and hands-on services to finetune client operations. As a result, most clients drop their chargebacks rate from the industry norm of 5-8% to under 2%, and save tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. More: www.chargebackgurus.com