From the casual eBay seller to the largest ecommerce vendor, the threat of fraud is real. When certain transactions raise flags, online sellers want to verify the identity or address of a customer before shipping their goods. This process is often referred to as a “Manual Review.”

The objective of a manual review is to verify the identity of a customer that has placed an order. Seems easy right? Plug an address into Google Maps. Search the name and find social media accounts, and address records. Although critical, without the proper tools these reviews can be tedious and uncertain.

The process quickly becomes even more complicated when shipping international or if you are operating in a country where the data to perform a verification is difficult to acquire. Did your customer service representative spell their name correctly? Was a deliverable address provided? Does the name provided match the address, sales tax ID number, phone, and email records?

In order to scale today’s omnichannel retailer, needs more than employees and a search engine for manual review. What most teams push for is an international reverse look-up that can operate as a real-time web service to check and score transactions as they occur, the ability to submit batches of records for verification, and the ability to do one-off look-ups.

Identity and address verification platforms with access to international reference data from in-country providers such as Worldview, offer manual review teams a compliment to existing processes and tools where simplicity or global coverage is desired. Having confidence in the reliability of an address of ID check can be the difference between sending expensive merchandise to a fraudster with an online profile and PO Box or catching the fraud before it happens.

Fraud cost retailers an estimated $9 Billion last year. The average fraudulent transaction was worth $219. On average, retailers incur costs of $2.70 per $1 in fraud. For a fraction of the cost, manual review teams leveraging platforms like Worldview, can help open new international markets, prevent fraud, and boost bottom lines.