Scams and identity fraud have become harder for consumers to spot as criminals use more convincing emails, texts, calls and digital impersonation tactics. Businesses can’t prevent every fraud attempt, but they can make it easier for customers to recognize suspicious activity and respond quickly when something feels off.
That kind of support is becoming a bigger part of the customer relationship, especially as consumers are asked to share, verify and protect more personal information online. Below, members of Forbes Business Council share practical ways businesses can help their customers form a stronger first line of defense against fraud.
1. Make Fraud Warnings Action-Specific
One practical step is to make fraud warnings specific to the customer action, not buried in generic education pages. When a customer is changing payment details, resetting access or responding to an urgent request, the business should show clear risk cues at that exact moment. The strongest first line of defense is guidance that reaches people before pressure overrides judgment. – Deepa Tailor, Tailor Law Professional Corporation.
2. Create A Clear Communications Policy
Companies must create a concise communications policy. Unlike the privacy and cookies policies that nobody reads, the communications policy should be visual and describe how the company and customer will communicate directly or indirectly on the web, phone and in any portals. Make consumers go through the communications policy as part of onboarding and periodically afterwards to understand best practices. – Muhammad Ali Khan, SuperQ Quantum
3. Use A Secure Document Portal
We help clients build a first line of defense by eliminating email for document transfer. In global mobility, we handle highly sensitive identity data. By forcing all exchanges into a proprietary, zero-trust encrypted portal, we create a strict boundary. Clients are trained that any document request outside this closed ecosystem is an immediate red flag for fraud. – Henry Fan, Globevisa Group
4. Make Suspicious Activity Easy To Report
Because identity thieves and impersonation scammers try to maximize financial gain before their schemes are detected, it’s critical to give customers easy ways to report suspicious activity when they spot it. Live support channels that not only take the report but also provide rapid guidance on next steps are a best practice in this era of constantly scaling attacks. – Matt Cullina, TransUnion
5. Define Normal Customer Interactions
Businesses should stop treating fraud prevention as a compliance feature and start treating it as customer education infrastructure. One practical move is normalizing expected behavior. Tell customers exactly how your company communicates, bills, requests verification and handles support. Fraud thrives in ambiguity. Clear behavioral patterns make scams easier to spot instantly. – Pranav Dalal, Office Beacon
6. Add Personalized Codewords To Communications
Companies should implement personalized codewords in all official communications. When clients set up their account, they choose a secret phrase that appears in every legitimate message. If it is missing, the message is a scam. Instead of customers proving identity to the company, the company proves its authenticity to them. Even deepfakes cannot replicate a codeword unique to each individual. – Alona Karpinska, Karpinska PR Group
7. Audit Access To Customer Data
Stop outsourcing your growth to platforms that don’t care about your customers’ data. Most identity fraud starts with a vendor chain nobody audited. Your CRM, your fulfillment tool, your third-party app—every integration is a door. Most businesses don’t even know how many doors they’ve left open. Protect the customer by first knowing exactly who has access to them through your business. – Shai Ortiz, Dezerv.Co
8. Build Fraud Literacy Into Customer Touchpoints
Embed fraud literacy into every customer touchpoint, not just breach notices. A 30-second explainer when a transaction is flagged teaches pattern recognition. Informed customers catch what systems miss. Defense scales when you train the human layer, not just the tech stack. – Anmol Goel, Gacs Multi-Family Office Ltd
9. Make Every Interaction Predictable
Most fraud starts with confusion, not a system breach. Businesses should make every customer interaction radically predictable. This could mean enforcing verified channels only, setting clear communication standards, and providing constant education on what the company will never ask for. The best fraud defense is reducing ambiguity before criminals can exploit it. – Richard Powell, APC Holdings, LLC
10. Set Verified Communication Patterns
The strongest fraud defense isn’t more technology. Instead, it’s verified communication patterns customers learn to expect. Tell customers exactly how, when and through what channels you’ll contact them. Never deviate. Then, when fraud attempts arrive, they don’t match the pattern. Customers will spot the difference because you trained them to. Predictability is the new security. – Brad Strawbridge, Capital City Roofing LLC
11. Give Customers Real-Time Context
One of the most effective things businesses can do is give customers real-time context at the moment something feels off. This could be a login from an unusual location, a device that doesn’t match their history, or a transaction pattern that’s out of character. When people understand why something triggered a warning, they’re far more likely to act on it rather than dismiss it. – Vaidotas Juknys, Decodo
12. Make Fraud Defense Simple And Immediate
The most practical step is to make fraud defense simple, timely and personal. Businesses should deliver real-time, plain-language alerts tied to the specific action a customer is taking, with one-click guidance on what to do next. When customers know why something is suspicious and how to respond immediately, they become a stronger first line of defense. – Rawad Baroud, ZeroGPT
13. Create A Single Verified Service Channel
At Komodo Luxury, our high-net worth clients are prime fraud targets. We lock every guest into one verified channel from day one and train them that any payment, itinerary or document request outside it is automatically suspicious. A dedicated concierge they recognize by voice removes ambiguity. Familiarity, consistency and one defined channel form the strongest first line of defense. – Agung Afif, Komodo Luxury
14. Embed Fraud Detection Into Products
Businesses need to embed real-time behavioral fraud detection at the core of the product itself. Instead of relying on static information, systems need to be trained to understand behavioral patterns, detect anomalies and alert before fraud even occurs. We can have AI agents run continuous penetration and identity tests against apps and infrastructures to identify vulnerabilities. – Rushil Agarwal, Human Archive
15. Warn Customers About Manufactured Urgency
Teach customers to be suspicious of urgency. Fraud works because it creates panic—“Act now or lose your account.” We send a simple monthly reminder to communicate to customers that we will never ask them to act immediately or secretly. This one sentence has become our customers’ first filter. Fraudsters exploit fear; education removes it. The best defense isn’t better technology but a customer who knows the playbook. – Oleg Levitas, Pravda SEO Inc, Real Results SEO Inc.
16. Make Customer Communications Hard To Imitate
One practical step is to communicate with customers in ways that are genuinely hard for scammers to imitate. Many businesses unintentionally train customers to trust the exact tactics fraudsters use, like urgent texts with links, calls asking to verify account details, and emails from unfamiliar subdomains. When legitimate and fraudulent messages look identical, customers can’t tell them apart. – Raymond Guo, Noon AI
17. Provide Ongoing Fraud Education
One practical way businesses can help customers form a stronger first line of defense against fraud is through providing ongoing education. Regularly reminding customers about common scams, phishing tactics and other ways they can be taken advantage of keeps risk top of mind and helps people recognize suspicious activity before real damage is done. – Cindy Machles, Glue Advertising and Public Relations
18. Let Customers Lock Their Accounts
One practical step is giving customers a one-tap “panic button” inside your app that instantly freezes transactions, sessions and account changes the moment something feels off. Most fraud succeeds in the first few minutes. Fast self-locking tools turn customers from passive victims into active responders before the damage spreads. – Ines Nasri, WebPower USA LLC
19. Pair Proactive Education With Real-Time Alerts
One practical way businesses can strengthen the first line of defense against identity fraud is through proactive education and real-time alerts. Providing customers with simple guidance on recognizing phishing attempts and suspicious activity, combined with instant notifications for unusual account behavior, helps consumers identify and stop fraud faster. – Jennifer Schaefer, JS Benefits Group
20. Send Security Digests After Transactions
Send customers a quick security digest after every transaction. We started attaching a one-line summary to booking confirmations showing which card was charged, from which device and when. If something looks wrong, customers can tap one button to flag it. Within two months, fraudulent booking attempts dropped 30% because our users caught things faster than our automated systems did. – Egor Karpovich, Travel Code Inc.
