Patent ID: 7428509

Claim:
A method for detecting payment account fraud, comprising computer implemented steps for: a. selecting one or more new or newly active payment accounts from a set of payment accounts, the step of selecting the one or more new or newly active payment accounts comprising, for each payment account of the set of payment accounts, excluding the payment account from the one or more new or newly active payment accounts if a transaction activity increase factor of the payment account, from a first time period to a second time period, was less than a threshold increase factor, the second time period being subsequent to the first time period; and b. selecting one or more suspect merchant accounts from a set of merchant accounts, the step of selecting the one or more suspect merchant accounts comprising at least one of the following steps for each merchant account of the set of merchant accounts: i. excluding the merchant account from the one or more suspect merchant accounts if a number of the one or more new or newly active payment accounts used to conduct at least one transaction with the merchant account during a third time period is less than a first threshold number or greater than an upper limit, ii. excluding the merchant account from the one or more suspect merchant accounts if a first fraction is less than a first threshold fraction, the first fraction comprising: (A) a number of transactions conducted with the merchant account during the third time period using at least one of the one or more new or newly active payment accounts, divided by (B) a total number of transactions conducted with the merchant account during the third time period, iii. excluding the merchant account from the one or more suspect merchant accounts if a second fraction is less than a second threshold fraction, the second fraction comprising: (C) a combined monetary value of the transactions conducted with the merchant account during the third time period using at least one of the one or more new or newly active payment accounts, divided by (D) a total combined monetary value of the transactions conducted with the merchant account during the third time period, and iv. excluding the merchant account from the one or more suspect merchant accounts if the transactions conducted with the merchant account during the third time period using at least one of the one or more new or newly active payment accounts have a combined monetary value that is less than a first threshold monetary value.