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CompanyProfile

ISO/MLS contact:
Rafael Lourenco
Vice President of U.S. Operations
786-479-2504
sales@clear.sale
www.clear.sale

Clearing online sales hurdles

hen two-time Olympic hurdler Pedro teams and fraud specialists to manage online fraud.
Chiamulera founded ClearSale in 2001, it Regardless of merchant size, those who deploy ClearSale
was the natural next step for the retired internally or as an outsourced service have been known
W Brazilian athlete. Armed with a degree to reap financial benefits and prevent the reputational
in computer science and the discipline of a world-class damage associated with false declines, he added.
athlete, he jumped at the opportunity to build the first
ecommerce anti-fraud systems to be deployed by two of "Although we specialize in reducing chargeback risks, our
Brazil's largest retailers. U.S.-based customers are not only interested in lowering
chargeback rates, but increasing their revenues," Lourenco
By 2010, ClearSale had grown substantially receiving said. "The average chargeback rate in the U.S. is 5 to 7
recognition as Brazil's second-fastest growing company. percent, but ClearSale's average is 1.5 to 2 percent, which
Today the online card-not-present fraud prevention makes a big difference." In terms of revenue, chargebacks
company of 750-plus employees continues to expand, represent about .9 percent for ClearSale clients, compared
having added a U.S. office in Florida, and it serves a with an industry average of 20 to 25 percent, he added.
cross-section of clients including such brands as Chanel,
Dell and Sony Corp. "We're currently working with Organized crime is behind a majority of online commerce
ecommerce businesses in the U.S. and internationally," fraud and presents a constant threat to businesses in
said Rafael Lourenco, Vice President of U.S. Operations all sectors. Thus, a one-size-fits-all fraud-prevention
for ClearSale. He noted that ClearSale's solution combines approach or relying on just a few variables, such as
three key elements: robust IT software, cloud analytics address verification systems that match purchasers’
whereby artificial intelligence modeling is applied to billing addresses to credit cards, offers inadequate
transactions automatically, and in-house personnel to protection, according to Lourenco.
manually review flagged transactions on a case-by-case
basis. "You have to count on different technologies," he said. "For
example, we have GPS imprinting that defines machine
"We combine an artificial intelligence statistical model device location; IP geolocation; a mapper of the behavior
and manual decisioning to determine whether or not of the customer on the website and how much time is
to automatically approve transactions," Lourenco said. spent on each page and places clicked; proprietary fraud
"With a big merchant such as Wal-Mart, they send all scoring and rules; and other cross-check data sources."
the transactions through our systems, and we are able
to decide all of them. We have a solution called Total These are among the tools deployed by ClearSale to thwart
Guaranteed Protection, where we pay for the chargebacks online fraudsters, Lourenco pointed out. "It's important
we approve." to combine at least a bit of manual monitoring, because
the patterns change, and even the machine learning
Fraud has no boundaries algorithms are not 100 percent real time," he said, noting

As was widely predicted, online fraud attempts accelerated that ClearSale approves most transactions in less than 1
after the United States began its transition to EMV second; flagged items requiring manual review take a bit
(Europay, Mastercard and Visa). "We see it happening longer.
already in our numbers; fraud attempts are growing,"
Lourenco said. "We are experiencing this in one industry ClearSale also offers partner and affiliate programs.
after another. They go firstly to the riskiest transactions According to Lourenco, agents and processors can work
through the riskiest products and then move to other with the company on a nonexclusive basis, and many who
industries." Lourenco said small to midsize businesses introduce the service to certain ecommerce merchants in
with an online presence are generally most affected, since their portfolios establish long-term relationships with
larger retailers typically have the resources, tools, internal ClearSale as the merchant businesses expand.

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