Real Engagement: Interacting with Actual Customers

The FTC reported that nationwide fraud losses topped $10B in 2023, and they've only climbed since. Forged signatures, forged documents, and forged activity across every digital channel are impacting businesses on all fronts, with the liability falling squarely on them.

These aren't isolated incidents—fraud is destroying lives and is widespread:

• ​A California couple lost $49K after wiring money to a fraudster posing as a Chase bank employee. Another elderly Utah man lost $10K to a similar telephone spoofing scam.
• ​Elder fraud is a nationwide concern, with seniors losing $1.6B in financial crimes in 2022.
• ​A Missouri man had his mail stolen after a fraudster changed his forwarding address online, then cashed checks and stole his identity to open a credit card.
• ​A 92-year-old Dallas woman's identity was stolen and her house was sold without her knowledge. Property deed fraud is happening nationwide, with similar cases in New York, Arizona, and Michigan.

Common Thread: Fraud Happens After Onboarding

Most people assume that rigorous KYC (Know Your Customer) at account opening—username, password, maybe a document check—makes every future interaction secure. It doesn't. Identity verification was originally built for onboarding and compliance, but fraud doesn't stop at account creation. In reality, the liability and damages are even higher when someone forges a signature or fraudulently gains access to an existing account.

Secure Every Customer Interaction, Not Just Onboarding

Typically, customer identity is verified once, during onboarding. Every interaction after that is often secured with just a username and password. This is insufficient because usernames and passwords are easily compromised. Hundreds of millions of passwords have been exposed due to data breaches, and two-factor authentication is no longer foolproof—fraudsters can trick customers into revealing their codes.

Stronger methods exist, such as biometric verification, document verification, and liveness detection, but most businesses only use them at onboarding, if at all.

Businesses receive instructions from customers daily, either through online portal actions or signed documents. But how can a company be sure who is actually initiating these actions? When a bank receives a document instructing them to move money or make account changes, how can they trust it's legitimate? Even physical documents aren't immune to fraud.

A simple document with an eSignature does not guarantee the signer's identity. Evidence is needed to prove the signature was completed by the intended person. In 2021, US financial institutions reported 1.6 million cases of identity-related fraud activities, amounting to $212 billion in losses.

Companies are realizing that every interaction with customers needs to be secured. Bad actors are not just making fake accounts—they're stealing credentials, impersonating customers, signing documents, logging into portals, wiring money, and authorizing critical transactions online.

Previously, businesses assumed online transactions were safe because of username and password requirements. That's not enough. Every instruction—wire transfer, power of attorney, sale authorization—can be cryptographically tied to a verified identity before execution. This should be the standard.

However, businesses aren't verifying identity before all important transactions in a customer's lifecycle. It's impractical to ask customers to show ID every time they use a platform, as it creates too much friction. Banks can't implement and manage a full suite of fraud tools for every action on their website, which is why fraudsters are succeeding.

Fraud is rising and consumers are unprotected. Regulators are responding by writing legislation that puts the liability for fraud on businesses. Financial institutions are now being sued when fraud occurs on their platforms.

How to Build Certainty Into Every Customer Interaction

The challenge is how businesses can reliably add identity assurance to every interaction. Using separate systems for different types of verification is inefficient. Businesses can achieve certainty by having a single identity layer bound to any interaction—whether signing, notarizing, authorizing, clicking, or verifying identity.

A universal identity layer should provide:

• ​A platform that understands and incorporates state laws.
• ​The ability to sign or notarize documents, and perform identity verification even when there's nothing to sign.
• ​Audited and certified identity verification methods (e.g., NIST IAL2).
• ​A dynamic customer experience allowing customers to step up to a trusted agent (like a notary) in real time when identity is in question.
• ​Real-time fraud monitoring using data such as email age, IP location, and ID verification to detect forged signatures.
• ​Secure documents and artifacts that prove authorization or signature, protected cryptographically against tampering.
• ​A system that saves identity so consumers don't have to scan their ID every time they interact with the company.

This is the vision behind Proof: bringing trust to every transaction on the internet.