Show members how they can fight back against fraud

Fight fraud with your CU’s website

Let’s face it: fraud is an unfortunate fact of life, and protecting your credit union’s members against fraud and scams is a long-term, constant battle on many fronts.

Fortunately, better fraud awareness can go a long way toward preventing fraud before it starts. Your website is the central component of making your members more fraud-savvy so that they can help protect themselves, and understand what to do if they suspect fraud.

Here are five CU website best practices for effective communication and member education about fraud and scams.

Don’t panic

This may sound a little counterintuitive, but you probably need to calm down a little about fraud, and start treating it as an everyday fact of life, not a constant stream of “panic-of-the-day” content and dire warnings.

One of your biggest enemies in fraud awareness and education is plain old fraud fatigue; if there are multiple red alerts with highly emotional language every day, they’re going to quickly get ignored. Plus, constant negativity and fraud alerts might lead members to wonder whether your CU is too risky.

Reserve the red alerts for times when they really are red alerts, and keep the language calm, concise, confident, and neutral, with links to frequently updated explanations, details and instructions. 

Normalize fraud awareness

Make a permanent space for fraud content on your homepage, and create a “Fraud Center” or “Fraud Education” page on your website. That way, people will start to know where to look if they have questions or problems, and they’ll expect to see new information on fraud every time they visit.

Keep it simple and clear, with links to interesting, quick, and relevant fraud prevention info on your Fraud Center page. It’s important to avoid jargon, too. Members don’t really need to know or care about the difference between phishing and smishing – they need to know how to handle deceptive calls, emails and text messages.

By discussing fraud and scams openly and regularly, you’ll help empower members and reduce fear and confusion.

Be there for panicked members

Put yourself in the shoes of a member who may be experiencing active fraud. They’re upset, scared, maybe even embarrassed and angry. They may want to talk to someone, or interacting with a person may be the very last thing they want to do. Think about all the places on your website (and social media, call center, etc.) where someone in a panic might look for help, think about the words they might use, and make sure they can easily find help in multiple ways.

For example, maybe they’ll try searching your site, so place a prominent “Fraud Center” link in the search form. Or maybe they’ll scan through your home page or navigation. Make sure your fraud center is easily spotted on your home page, as well as in your navigation and even your site footer. 

In your fraud center, start with a list of exactly what people who suspect fraud should do, with clear instructions for every situation. For example, lost/stolen cards, suspicious transactions, locked out, suspicious emails or texts, etc. Again, make sure you use calm, clear everyday language, not jargon or overly emotional language, and use short sentences and bullet points. Plus, include lots of ways people can quickly get in touch with a real live human (voice, text, email, etc.) if they have questions or need reassurance.

In other words, give members who suspect fraud a clear plan of action to follow in an easy-to-find place, with assistance and support if they need it.

One fresh fraud message at a time

Like every credit union, you’re fending off several kinds of fraud attempts every single day. But multiple alerts will quickly cause fraud fatigue, and soon your members won’t pay attention to any of them. Boil things down to one simple idea at a time, and refresh and remix the primary message frequently.

Depending on the available features of your website’s CMS, you might be able to randomize this content, or rotate through different content with each visit, or even perhaps target fraud content to specific kinds of site visitors. Keep things fresh, simple, and frequently updated on social media, and if possible inside online banking and your app too.

Don’t forget to keep things fresh and interesting. A constant diet of negative fear-and-doom messaging will turn people off quickly. Think about how you can make fraud education content more relevant, more local, more proactive, positive, and hopeful. Show your members how they can fight back. Tell some success stories, and share real-world examples.

Be prepared

Everyday fraud content should be an integral part of your overall marketing and financial education content strategy. Instead of reacting to the fraud of the week, get out in front of fraud with a variety of different content, from a lot of different angles and perspectives. You might even sign up with a content provider like eFraudPrevention for a wide variety of useful, interesting, well-researched fraud education content you can quickly add to your website.

In addition, make sure member communication is central to your fraud response planning for bigger incidents. Determine who is going to say what and how and when before a crisis hits, as part of your normal crisis management and disaster planning. The professional communicators, Marketing, should be in the room for this planning and leading the communication effort if there’s a crisis.

Recovery from a fraud crisis can be technically difficult, time-consuming, and uncertain, and it’s easy to overlook how important it is to tell your members what’s happening, what to expect, and what they need to do. They’re going to look to your website, social media, and even your app and online banking for answers, so make sure you’re ready to keep them in the loop.

Brian Wringer

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