Canadian Retailer - Store 2013 - 40

STORE 2013 ERA AWARDS

LOSS PREVENTION

STOPPING THE BAD GUYS

Curbing fraud and deterring illegal
behaviour objectives for winning loss
prevention initiative
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES was the third highest grossing film

of 2012. And the opening weekend, as everybody predicted, was
huge. The lines ran out the door and Batman fans showed up in
costume to celebrate their comic book hero.
For Cineplex, Canada’s largest movie theatre chain, the Knight
was huge—and it was a huge night for Cineplex’s Loss Prevention
team. While going through pre-sales for opening night, they uncovered fraud committed through the Cineplex mobile app.
And like Gotham’s greatest detective, the Cineplex team
leapt into action to catch the crooks.
A team effort

ously make ticket purchases through the Cineplex mobile app or through online ticket purchases at Cineplex.com,” says Langdon. With
the ability to void fraudulently purchased tickets, the program has effectively curbed fraud
committed through one of most popular apps
in Canada.
“The key take-away from it was that by analyzing a number of key variables in the purchasing process, we were able to create a watch
list and identify suspicious transactions,” says
Langdon. The watch list is a list of questions
and suspicious activities that can help theatre
personnel ferret out fraudulent activity. The
watch list makes it difficult for fraudsters to
slip suspicious transactions and fraudulent
tickets through the turnstile. The list empowers Cineplex’s customer service team and acts
as another deterrent for cheaters.

The Cineplex Mobile App lets customers find movie times
and purchase tickets. As of March 13, 2013, the app has been
downloaded 5.8 million times and customers have logged 129
million app sessions. The app has proved convenient for customers and gives Cineplex a valuable way to connect with onthe-move customers. But it also gave fraudsters another way to
cheat the system.
At the outset of the investigation, which began
with pre-sale ticket orders of The Dark Knight Rises, “...by analyzing a number of key
it discovered that stolen credit cards were used to variables in the purchasing process,
purchase tickets through the app which were sold on
we were able to create a watch list
social networking sites and online classified sites.
They also found that people were selling fraudulent and identify suspicious transactions.”
tickets at discounted rates in the theatre lobbies. An— MICHAEL LANGDON
other group of fraudsters weren’t using the mobile
Cineplex
app to steal from Cineplex but were instead using
the mobile app to test whether faked credit cards could be used
The award-winning program also shows the
for online purchases.
power of analytics to curb fraud. In one case,
To fight the fraud, Cineplex created an internal program that Cineplex’s investigation of suspicious activity
brought together Risk Management, Finance, IT and Oper- was so detailed that the company was able to
ations. The collaboration between departments set out to ex- generate a package of evidence that police are
pose fraud and protect Cineplex and its customers.
using in their investigation.
“We don’t want well-meaning guests buying from unauthorLangdon calls the quickly implemented,
ized sources because it’s not in their best interests,” says Mi- award-winning fraud prevention program a
chael Langdon, Director of Communications for Cineplex.
significant success.
“We were able to educate guests about the
risk of buying tickets through non-authorized
Catching thieves
While it’s hard to measure the value of the program in dollar sources, we’ve minimized further losses to
figures, Langdon says that the program analyzed the purchas- the company, and in some cases we were able
ing process and found ways to tighten controls. “Fraudsters can to identify the subjects who we believe were
no longer use unauthorized credit card information to continu- perpetrating the fraud.”

40 |

canadian retailer | store 2013 | www.retailcouncil.org/cdnretailer

http://www.Cineplex.com http://www.retailcouncil.org/cdnretailer

Canadian Retailer - Store 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Canadian Retailer - Store 2013