Letting Customers Chase Your Thieves Gets Something More Valuable Than A Nabbed Thief: A Loyal and Happy Customer
Written by Mark RaschNovember 8th, 2011
Do you need help tracking down the cyberthieves who periodically attack? Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But if you set up a mechanism to let your customers try and help, you might get something much more valuable than a captured thief: lots of happy and loyal customers. Sound strange? It is. But it's also true.
Consider this true story from Legal Columnist Mark Rasch: About a week ago, Rasch's wife's E-mail provider notified her that she was a baaaaad girl. Apparently she had sent out a bunch of spam in violation of the Terms of Service. Of course, it wasn't her, and he notified the provider of this fact. What happened next, or more accurately what didn't happen next, is a cautionary tale about the nature of the relationships between IT vendors and customers (like merchants) and the relationships between merchants and their customers.
This Story Is Only Available For Premium Subscribers. Click Or Login In Below To Read The Rest Of This Story.
Already a Subscriber? Login Here
2 Comments | Read Letting Customers Chase Your Thieves Gets Something More Valuable Than A Nabbed Thief: A Loyal and Happy Customer
Leave a Reply
Readers, specifically those who want to comment on a story:
Our Comment SPAM system is getting very aggressive these days and has been blocking legitimate comments. If you post a comment and don't see it appear within 2 hours or so, can you please send a heads-up to customer-service@storefrontbacktalk.com? Ideally, please include the time you posted the comment. That will allow us to try and hunt for it. Thanks! P.S. We're working on fixing the system, but we don't want to lose any valuable comments in the meantime.
Our Comment SPAM system is getting very aggressive these days and has been blocking legitimate comments. If you post a comment and don't see it appear within 2 hours or so, can you please send a heads-up to customer-service@storefrontbacktalk.com? Ideally, please include the time you posted the comment. That will allow us to try and hunt for it. Thanks! P.S. We're working on fixing the system, but we don't want to lose any valuable comments in the meantime.
-Christine
November 8th, 2011 at 11:51 pm
I absolutely agree with you. Anything less than getting your customers involved is like watching someone get beaten in front of your house while you do nothing.
If more merchants and customers got involved, I think we’d see a less cyber-crime. As you mentioned, privacy issues and all the other excuses are tossed around and anonymity runs wild.
Merchants, service providers, and all the others need to share information. It’s proven to make things happen. Programs like Ethoca’s FraudStop have proven it.
November 10th, 2011 at 10:07 am
Unfortunately, no one of importance, the merchant much less the police or card issuers and associations, are interested in pursuing these criminals. Criminals know this so they continue to operate with reckless abandon. UNTIL someone in one of those entities or who is high profile is compromised, then it’s Katie, bar the door.
If you remember the article about how one broken window leads to another then to more vandalism and crime you see how important it is to pursue, apprehend and punish to the greatest extent possible the small time hacker you send a strong message that this activity will not be tolerated at any level, hence diminishing the overall problem. Yes it takes investing a dollar on dime issue but dime make dollars and dollars left unprotected leads to hundreds of dollars of problem.