Online Dating Platform Ghosts Lone Fraudsters Using Arkose Labs Platform

Overview

As online dating becomes the new normal across an increasingly wide demographic range, there are estimates that 32% of all internet users now use dating sites and apps. Users are looking to meet potential matches in a simple and seamless way that fits into their busy lives.

The client is a large online dating platform which makes it quick and easy for users to set up profiles using their photos and a small bio. Prioritizing a smooth on-boarding experience helps ensure they can maintain a wide pool of potential matches for its users which has led to its popularity and rapid global expansion.

The Business Problem

The popularity and simplicity of the client’s platform made it a prime target for fraudsters. Specifically, there was a recurring issue where bad actors created fake accounts and proceeded to scam others on the platform. With little information needed to create a profile, fraudsters would create multiple accounts and proceed to send messages to real users on a large scale, inviting them to click malicious links, ask for money or engage in phishing schemes. The company also faced affiliate fraud as well.

The platform wanted to preserve the customer experience and ease of use that it was known for, while at the same time rooting out the creation of these fake accounts. While fraudulent activity could ultimately be identified downstream, they needed an additional line of defense that proactively monitored the account registration stage in order to prevent subsequent abuse. Doing so was critical to retaining user trust and avoiding damage to the brand. This also needed to be achieved with no negative impact on good customer throughput, preserving the quick and easy sign up process.

The Arkose Labs Solution

Targeted, human-driven fraudulent activity is notoriously difficult to detect early. Deploying Arkose Labs at the account registration stage had an immediate positive effect, with the dating company able to identify bad actors early on.

Using advanced behavioral analytics to identify telltales of fraudulent activity enabled the platform to target suspicious traffic with additional friction at the account creation stage. That meant fraudsters were faced with a greater effort to complete each registration. This disincentivized them from creating fake accounts.

Additionally, Arkose Labs passed data signals back to the platform that helped identify returning fraudsters with a high degree of accuracy. The company could also use these insights to ban bad users and identify them if they returned to the platform later, thus reducing future abuse.

This approach successfully thwarted both automated and targeted attacks by fraudsters before they could connect with genuine users to scam them.

Long-term Success

Arkose Labs believes that combating fraud and abuse requires a solution rooted in the prevention of abusive attacks at the point of entry without impacting good customer experience. Arkose MatchKey challenges require incremental time and effort from the fraudsters. This continual increase in costs, renders the attacks inefficient and economically non-viable, stopping the cat-and-mouse game that fraudsters play with businesses.