Carousell launching new review system and tech to tackle fraudsters
To counter the rise in e-commerce scams, Carousell plans to use new technology to identify and block fraudsters from creating new accounts.
The platform will also launch a feedback system allowing buyers to review sellers, so customers can have a better idea of vendors' behaviour, the company said on Tuesday.
E-commerce scams increased to 2,125 cases last year, up by 11.4 per cent from 1,907 cases in 2017.
About 70 per cent of them took place on Carousell, police said in their annual crime brief yesterday.
However, according to Carousell's calculations, its fraud rate has fallen by 44 per cent from the first quarter of last year.
In the fourth quarter of last year, only about three in 10,000 transactions were fraudulent, said Carousell's vice-president of operations, Ms Tan Su Lin.
She said the company has taken measures to prevent fraud over the past year.
In June last year, it introduced CarouPay, a payment system that holds a buyer's payment and releases it to the seller only when both parties are satisfied.
Carousell also introduced fraud detection technology last year that can automatically detect and take down malicious online content.
Its team of content moderators - who review user reports and take down bad accounts or listings - has been doubled in size to cover more content faster.
Carousell will soon roll out new digital fingerprinting technology to prevent repeat fraudsters from creating new accounts to cheat users.
It identifies a fraudster's "digital persona", picking out a set of digital signals that fraudsters leave behind on the Internet that would single them out when they try to create a new account.
It will also launch a new user feedback and star rating system on its app, where buyers can rate sellers on specific details of the transactions, such as the quality of goods, or on their meet-ups.
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