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The Merchant Risk Council (MRC) is now offering the Fraud Essentials course free of charge to its members, thanks to Checkout.com. It’s our latest investment into educating tomorrow’s payment professionals.
Aimed at those working in fraud prevention, ecommerce or payments, Fraud Essentials is a beginner-level course covering the fundamentals of revenue risk assessment and fraud protection. It counts for 3.6 CPE (Continuing Professional Education) learning credits.
When 82% of US ecommerce merchants experienced cyber or data breaches in the last year – security must rise to the top of the agenda. With work-from-anywhere policies proliferating and digital co-working the norm, cybersecurity weak spots abound.
Nearly half of merchants (47%) have lost customers and revenue due to fraud.
Digitally-enabled fraud is a major challenge for all businesses. Customers want to pay easily and online. Yet it can be difficult to balance a smooth user experience with robust authentication protocols.
When it comes to revenue protection, loss prevention is the best policy. And that starts with education. Just a few hours of your team’s time invested into cyber security and fraud education can save your business from colossal reputation damage, financial loss, and legal challenges. This course will help you to recognise critical vulnerabilities, and design a cyber smart payment strategy.
Read more: MRC collaboration: Thriving starts with education
What is the course format?
Fraud Essentials is a self-paced online education course, available in the Merchant Risk Council learning portal. It involves a mix of reading different types of text on screen with some interactive elements. There’s a multiple choice knowledge check at the end of each section.
The duration is 3-4 hours, depending on your reading speed.
Who is the course for?
The Fraud Essentials course is suitable for ecommerce professionals and those working in payments. It’s also a good option for those beginning their fraud analysis and prevention career. Fraud analysts who want to sharpen their knowledge on the latest industry standards will also benefit.
Why do merchants need fraud education?
It’s important to remember that the merchant is liable for the financial cost of card-not-present fraud. Depending on your exact payment processing structures (and your authentication procedures, in particular), you may face a greater or lesser risk of monetary loss from fraudulent purchases from your business.
When a cardholder contacts their bank to complain of a fraudulent transaction, this can result in a chargeback. The merchant will usually incur costs for this process, including a chargeback fee. You should try to prevent chargebacks before they occur.
The MRC Fraud Essentials sponsorship is part of Checkout.com’s broader campaign to educate merchants about payments. We’ve also unlocked access to Payment Essentials, so that non-experts can learn the foundations of payments for driving profitability.
As a global payment services provider, Checkout.com is committed to helping merchants achieve secure online payment processing. Educating your team on the foundations of fraud will improve your chances of preventing it.
It’s just one of the ways we’re helping to strengthen the merchant community; our Fraud Detection Pro engine helps merchants to avoid financial loss. Control over your own payment traffic is essential, which is why our fraud prevention engine is customizable according to your business priorities.
What are the course contents?
The Fraud Essentials Course teaches many aspects of fraud prevention, including sections dedicated to:
- Identifying different types of online fraud attacks
- The nuances of marketplace fraud
- Analyzing address manipulation techniques
- Social engineering attacks and victim-assisted fraud
- Recognizing customer fraud
- The role of a fraud analyst
- Techniques used to evaluate fraud
Because fraud is so wide-reaching and complex, the course breaks the topic down into specific elements you’ll recognize in your business processes. For example, you’ll learn how various parts of the customer journey can be exploited for fraud. This helps you to increase the security of your payments operations, as you broaden awareness of potential vulnerabilities.
The course also covers important distinctions between various types of fraud, to help you recognize and prevent each kind. By the end, you’ll understand the differences between impersonation, obfuscation, and first-party misuse.
You’ll gain a comprehensive view of how and where fraud can occur. Since fraud can take forms you may not expect, it’s easy to overlook parts of the buyer journey which are vulnerable to data theft. Completing the course will not only raise your awareness of risks, but also inspire the development of your own fraud prevention strategy.
Secure your business against fraud attacks with Checkout.com and MRC
The course is available at no cost to Merchant Risk Council members, courtesy of Checkout.com, until September 2025. You can enroll in Fraud Essentials online, and set your own pace for learning.
If you’re looking for technology that filters fraudulent activity out of your legitimate payment traffic, look into Fraud Detection Pro from Checkout.com. It’s a customizable engine that allows you to set your own parameters for suspicious payment requests.
It’s part of our end-to-end payment processing services, which also include authentication, tokenization, and digital fund management capabilities.
About the MRC
The MRC is a global non-profit membership association connecting ecommerce professionals through industry-leading educational programs, online community groups, conferences, and networking events. Their mission is to advocate for safer and more profitable ecommerce for everyone.
