Table of contents
"Wool harvesting" has become industrialized
How to collect wool in black and gray production
How merchants can prevent “wool harvesting”
Preventing wool harvesting is the key to increasing store revenue
In 2021, a cross-border merchant posted a video asking Amazon customer service how to stop the unreasonable behavior of wool-picking buyers and recover losses.
The merchant stated that a buyer placed an order for the product for $130. A few days after the goods were shipped from the own warehouse, the buyer suddenly applied for an exchange, but at this time the logistics did not show a receipt. A few days after requesting an exchange, the goods showed that they had been signed for, but the exchange order was still being requested. In other words, the buyer pays one payment, but the seller has to deliver two different products of the same value. The seller had no choice but to consult Amazon customer service for help.
Amazon's return policy is that, except for products that are clearly marked on the product details page and confirmed at the time of purchase as "no reason to return", within 30 days after the product is delivered, if the product is intact, unused or damaged, and has all accessories Under the premise, you can apply for a return. Taking advantage of this 30-day free return period, some buyers will return or exchange goods maliciously.
A man in North Carolina, USA, took advantage of Amazon's consumer return and exchange policy to "strip the wool" and caused Amazon a loss of about US$290,000. According to information from the Ministry of Justice, the man specifically placed orders on Amazon for some high-priced products, including but not limited to coffee machines, new computers, etc., and then used Amazon's return policy to initiate a refund and then refused to return or returned some defective products, in order to Profit from it.
The behavior of buyers abusing sales policies and taking advantage of merchants has become a business problem that cannot be ignored. This behavior not only brings huge direct losses and additional operating costs to cross-border overseas merchants, but also hinders the normal development of event promotions and seriously affects the normal operation of business.
" Wool harvesting " has become industrialized
The real loss goes far beyond unlimited coffee refills, free rides, hotel stays, or other small perks. The profit chain of black and gray Internet products can shake corporate profits and affect the normal business development of enterprises, thereby seriously threatening the lifeline of enterprises. For example, fraudulent exchanges for gifts, discounts, discount coupons, etc. in the form of shopping vouchers cause losses of up to US$300-500 million to US companies every year.
Shopping voucher transactions usually involve data exchange between users, retailers or voucher issuers, and clearing centers to organize and audit each voucher. The black industry has tools specifically designed to do just this: brute force cracking by stealing or deciphering the ticket algorithm, or exploiting vulnerabilities in the verification process. There was such a case: a researcher successfully rewrote the "race condition" for handling gift cards in the Starbucks web application, and the result was unlimited free coffee. In another incident, the hotel reservation verification process was breached and a discount code provided by the hotel to employees of a client company was used.
Internet fraudsters are a group of planned and premeditated business fraudsters who have a clear division of labor, close cooperation, and coordinated crimes, forming a complete industrial chain. They are familiar with the company's business processes, understand the company's needs, risk control rules and business vulnerabilities, and can skillfully use new technologies such as mobile Internet, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence to conduct business fraud operations. Black and gray actors hold a large number of accounts. Individual actions are legal, but groups are illegal, making it difficult to identify. Attackers include bad users, professional hackers, and possibly malicious colleagues, making it difficult to defend against them.
How to collect wool in black and gray production
Register fake accounts in batches. Registration is the key process for creating an account. Black and gray products can use the registration machine to perform batch automated account registration, thereby registering hundreds or even tens of thousands of accounts to achieve large-scale grabbing and stocking up of goods.
Use group control to control accounts . Heihui Products can use group control to control dozens, hundreds or even thousands of devices with one computer for unified registration, login, rush purchase, order placement, etc. Group control also provides functions such as simulated positioning, shake, batch import of address books, and message push.
Fake IP location. The IP address is the network information address of the user when surfing the Internet. Heihuishan uses the Dial IP tool, which can automatically call dynamic IP addresses across the country and even abroad. It has functions such as automatic switching, disconnection redialing, automatic cleaning of browser cookies cache, virtual network card information, etc., and can quickly and seamlessly switch domestic IP addresses in different foreign regions.
Fake GPS positioning . GPS positioning is the geographical location information of the user when using network services. Heihui products can use simulation software and third-party tools to change the longitude and latitude of the location, and can achieve instant "travel" to any place.
Forge device properties . The device model, serial number, IMEI, etc. are unique. Black and gray products can use modification tools to hijack device interfaces from the system level. When applications call these interfaces to obtain various parameters of the device, all they obtain are the attribute information of the device forged by the modification tools. Generally speaking, the modification tool can complete 1,000 device attributes in 2-3 minutes.
How merchants can prevent “wool harvesting”
Wherever there is profit, there will be black and gray products. Therefore, merchants must not only establish a more complete business prevention and control system, but also put risk prevention and control in every day. Business risk fraud is constantly changing, and methods are changing rapidly. New attack methods have adjusted or even immunized existing prevention and control measures. Traditional measures cannot identify and provide early warning for new risks in a timely manner. Moreover, many business security procedures of online shopping platforms are prone to conflict with each other or even fight with each other. Once a misjudgment occurs, it will directly affect order transactions and store operations.
Identify and alert risky IP addresses. Access the IP risk database to perform risk matching on user-associated IPs, identify proxy and dial-up IP risks, and intercept malicious IP addresses.
Identify and warn risky equipment. Identify whether the client's device fingerprint is legal and whether there are risks such as injection, hooking, and simulators. Identify whether the client's device fingerprint is legal and quickly identify risks such as flashing, rooting, jailbreaking, and hijacking injection. Quickly identify multiple activations of the same device, abnormal IP behavior associated with the same device, a large number of the same IP aggregation in a short period of time, abnormal proportion of old device models in the same channel, abnormal proportion of old operating systems in the same channel, etc.
Identify and block risky accounts. Determine the verification environment information and token when verification is completed, and detect abnormalities and risky operations in a timely manner. Detect abnormal account behavior. Conduct strategic deployment and control based on user behavior, and deploy and control accounts that switch a large number of accounts on the same device to initiate orders.
Analyze and predict future risk behavior changes. Establish a dynamic operation and maintenance mechanism for local lists. Based on registration data, login data, and activation data, it precipitates and maintains corresponding black and white list data, including black lists of user IDs, mobile phone numbers, devices, and other dimensions. After a certain amount of online data has been accumulated, the registration, login, ordering, and rush buying behaviors can be modeled through risk control data and business precipitation data. The output of the model can be used directly in the risk control strategy.
Preventing wool harvesting is the key to increasing store revenue
As competition among companies going overseas intensifies, increasing marketing and promotion has become an important means to acquire customers and increase sales. By preventing the phenomenon of "wool harvesting", we can not only ensure the safety and financial security of marketing promotion activities, but also reduce operating costs, improve marketing accuracy, and thereby increase revenue and revenue.
First of all, preventing "wool harvesting" ensures the safety of marketing and promotion, reduces the risk of illegal infringement of funds and goods, and effectively reduces the operating costs of enterprises. The behavior of harvesting wool often leads to unnecessary cost expenditures for enterprises, such as discounts, coupons, etc. being abused or used fraudulently, causing unnecessary losses to enterprises. By strengthening the monitoring and verification of marketing activities, merchants can promptly detect and prevent profiteering behaviors, reduce ineffective cost expenditures, save operating costs for enterprises, and improve efficiency.
Secondly, preventing "wool" can help improve marketing accuracy. The behavior of harvesting wool often brings a large amount of invalid traffic and potential customers, causing interference to the company's marketing activities and reducing the effectiveness and conversion rate. Through in-depth analysis of user behavior and preferences, and the use of precise marketing methods and tools, companies can better locate and attract target customers with real purchase intentions and potential, and improve the accuracy and effectiveness of promotions.
Finally, preventing "wool harvesting" can increase the company's revenue and income . By preventing the occurrence of fleecing, merchants can avoid the decline in sales and profits caused by factors such as abuse of discounts. At the same time, by reducing ineffective cost expenditures and improving marketing accuracy, companies can use resources more effectively, improve sales conversion rates, and increase sales and profits. In addition, through good brand reputation and trustworthy services, companies can also attract more loyal customers and increase long-term stable revenue sources.