CASE STUDY
How Ventura Country Credit Union prevented millions in fraud losses
Executive summary
Ventura County Credit Union (VCCU) has a clear mission: to look after the financial well-being of its members in the local community. Located in Southern California, VCCU has been providing individuals and businesses with checking and savings accounts, mortgages, credit cards, business accounts, commercial loans, and more since 1950.
Like every financial institution, tackling fraud is critical, and VCCU is strongly committed to protecting its members. Thomson Reuters Risk & Fraud Solutions form the central pillar of its fraud detection, compliance, and due diligence efforts. In less than two years since implementing those solutions, the credit union has prevented many millions in losses.
Daniel Castro, Director of Fraud & Compliance at VCCU, has been using Thomson Reuters Risk & Fraud Solutions for the past 18 years of his career. He is such an advocate for their effectiveness that he has recommended them to federal government agencies, police departments, and many other credit unions. He decided to deploy the tools when he joined VCCU in 2022, knowing how valuable they would be for onboarding accounts and detecting scams, money mules, ID theft, money laundering, fake businesses, and other fraud.
The challenges VCCU faced before using Thomson Reuters Risk & Fraud Solutions
Ventura County Credit Union faced significant challenges before implementing Thomson Reuters Risk & Fraud Solutions. One of the primary issues was elder financial exploitation, where fraudsters frequently targeted vulnerable senior members. Additionally, the credit union struggled with identifying and managing money mules — individuals used to transfer illegally obtained funds on behalf of criminals. Another pressing concern was the proliferation of synthetic IDs, where fraudsters created fictitious identities to open accounts and commit financial crimes.
The limited data they had access to compounded these problems, making it difficult to detect suspicious activities. Moreover, the credit union faced challenges in making meaningful connections with the data they did have, which hindered their ability to uncover fraudulent patterns and networks. These multifaceted challenges highlighted the urgent need for a robust and comprehensive solution to enhance their fraud detection and prevention capabilities.
Why Ventura County Credit Union chose Thomson Reuters
Before deploying Thomson Reuters Risk & Fraud Solutions, Ventura Country Credit Union was using a combination of competitive solutions, search engines, and various county and state government websites.
From Castro’s personal experience, he found the competitor to be very limited in terms of the data and content. “I was showing my staff here the difference between CLEAR and the competitor. We were looking at one individual with an arrest record longer than your arm. Using CLEAR we determined she was using other people’s identities, but the competitor showed none of that.”
Castro reiterated that with CLEAR, they were getting more information that they could use to make decisions and found the information more accurate. The speed at which they found the information they were looking for was also helpful as it improved their efficiency. “One of the first things that I mentioned when I came to work here was that I wanted to get the Thomson Reuters Risk & Fraud products,” he said.
Another big differentiator for Castro is the Risk Inform tool's scoring capabilities. This tool gives users a risk rating on a particular subject from zero to 100, backed up by reasoning. For example, it will say that someone has a particular score because they have multiple social security numbers or their age doesn’t match the other information received. Armed with that insight, the VCCU team can make informed decisions about the scale of the potential threat of fraud or other criminal activity and what to do next.
“People thought I was crazy when I said that these products are going to change how we do things, and then on the very first day we uncovered five ID thefts. Then they understood why having this tool is so great in assisting us in preventing losses,” says Castro. “It’s like night and day. Thomson Reuters Risk & Fraud Solutions are literally taking us to another level,” he adds.
Implementing a robust fraud prevention program
Castro heads a team of six, but everyone who works at VCCU — from branch tellers to the member services team — is trained on how to use the tools, which include CLEAR, ID Confirm, and Risk Inform. For example, staff in branches find them extremely useful for checking identities when issuing new loans, when new members are joining, or when activities look suspicious.
When staff run details through the tools and everything checks out, they have the confidence to go ahead. However, if their searches reveal mismatches in the information given, recent changes to phone numbers or addresses, or links to multiple identities and addresses, they can further investigate and take any necessary preventative action promptly. Not only do these tools help staff spot potential criminal activity, they support them in providing more robust evidence to law enforcement.
Preventing significant losses
According to Castro, uncovering fraud is an almost daily event, and he and his team regularly exceed their key performance indicators (KPIs). “In one month not long ago, we achieved between eight to ten months’ worth of fraud prevention targets. Over the past 20 months, we started tracking fraud, and the losses prevented in numbers and the dollar amounts are huge — in the multi-millions,” he says.
“In one recent example, we had a money mule attempt, and the individual’s information didn’t match. Then we did a deeper dive and started running all the different type of searches that are at our fingertips. We saved $40,000 in losses on just that one account,” Castro continues. He points out that losing even relatively small amounts could majorly impact victims, especially since many members are vulnerable. So, it’s a huge responsibility for the team.
Stemming losses is clearly vital for potential victims and for VCCU itself. Plus, there are wider benefits. Castro explains, “Our insurance company has noticed a massive change in how we combat fraud — so much so that in the last two cycles of our policy, our premiums have gone down by 10% one year and 11% the next. Having Thomson Reuters Risk & Fraud Solutions is a big reason for that. We’ve definitely had our money’s worth, that’s for sure.”
In fact, Castro has seen such success that his insurance company has referred him to help over a dozen other credit unions with their risk and fraud issues.
Protecting elderly members from financial exploitation
Elder financial exploitation has been a significant focus for Ventura Country Credit Union over the past few years. Protection of senior elderly membership is a high priority, says Castro. Even the federal government has now stepped in and said preventing elder financial exploitation is a primary initiative within the United States.
Elder financial exploitation is particularly devastating and important to prevent because, as Castro put it, “$10,000 could make or break somebody tomorrow. That means they don’t get to pay their mortgage, put food on the table, or get medicine.”
Castro and his team were able to catch one instance of someone pretending to be a caregiver by running the suspect’s name through Thomson Reuters Risk & Fraud Solutions. The tools provided data that helped them identify the perpetrator and make the connection that he has a history of running these schemes.
Providing more robust evidence to the police
Another major benefit Castro has seen from using Thomson Reuters Risk & Fraud Solutions is the ability to provide enough detail to the police for a successful investigation. He points to one instance when an organized group tried to open up 15 or so accounts using stolen IDs. Using ID Confirm and Risk Inform, VCCU was able to stop eleven of those accounts from onboarding.
“We worked with law enforcement and literally laid our whole entire case out there. We picked out two or three people in the group now who have been arrested. I was even talking to the local detective here at Ventura County Sheriff’s Office and asked her if she had run them through CLEAR. Once she did, her reaction was: ‘Oh my gosh, I see what you’re seeing,’” said Castro. The victims of the identity theft were all in New York, but VCCU tracked down the true people using information from Thomson Reuters. “The amount of prevention on this case was well over $200,000,” according to Castro.
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