Fraud Gains a New Preventive Tool

As e-commerce and digital transactions become ever more mainstream in food retail, new opportunities arise for criminals bent on fraud. A new product launch could help stem such crime, and also point toward the future of fraud prevention in the grocery space.

Inmar Intelligence has launched what it calls the industry’s first holistic promotion fraud mitigation solution that combines point of sale (POS)-integrated technology, artificial intelligence, data science and analytics to prevent, detect and remediate coupon fraud. This solution, including its new POS-integrated technology, CNFRM (pronounced confirm), will be available for retailers and manufacturers for free. 

Coupon fraud is a critical concern within food and other types retail, costing the industry more than $100 million per year, the company said. Inmar Intelligence’s new holistic solution combats this issue with proactive and established counterfeit detection and management process, enabling clients to identify counterfeit coupons, stop payment, track activity and communicate with industry partners to help stop counterfeit coupons before they go viral. 

“Counterfeit coupon activity has doubled and, in some cases, tripled over the past few years due in part to the sharing scalability of counterfeit coupons on mainstream social media platforms,” said Ralph Maresco, VP and coupon solutions expert at Inmar Intelligence. “In many cases, innocent shoppers are using counterfeit coupons they may have accessed in a Facebook group, and have no reason to believe the coupons are fake. Inmar’s new solution represents the beginning of the end of this activity, representing a major win for CPGs, retailers and consumers who use coupons as they were intended.”

To help retailers prevent coupon fraud, Inmar Intelligence is offering CNFRM for free to retailers. Using CNFRM, retailers are able to identify valid and invalid offers instantaneously at the point of sale through a cloud-based decision engine. This real-time process empowers cashiers to confidently accept or reject manufacturer coupons without slowing down the checkout process. 

To detect coupon fraud, Inmar Intelligence incorporates artificial intelligence to uncover suspicious redemption patterns, providing insights to CPG brands and retailers on potential fraudulent activities. Combined with active monitoring of scanned "unknown" offers and Inmar Intelligence’s established investigative services, this fraud detection solution reduces the overall risk of exposure.

To remediate recurring fraudulent patterns, Inmar Intelligence’s advanced data analytics platform, On Demand, identifies areas of focus for remediation and measures the impact of fraud mitigation efforts. Through mapping and data visualization, CPG brands and retailers receive actionable insights to continuously reduce counterfeit coupons in the market.

Beyond the monetary loss, fraudulent coupons create negative customer experiences and strained vendor relationships: 

• Shoppers may experience longer checkout lines in-store and out of stock items. 
• Relationships between vendors are challenged due to unexpected deductions or chargebacks, inefficient reconciliation and lost sales. 

Both manufacturers and retailers have not been able to address coupon fraud at scale due to limited availability of technology-based solutions. 

“As a leading provider of tech-enabled solutions for retailers and CPGs, Inmar Intelligence is uniquely positioned to address this industry-wide challenge,” said David Mounts, chairman and CEO of Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based Inmar Intelligence. “We are dedicated to tackling the critical issue of coupon fraud across the retail industry by making it easy and cost-effective to prevent, detect and remediate fraudulent activities. We look forward to working with our current and future partners to decrease coupon fraud and return more promotional value to shoppers.”