How Turo prevents ATO and maintains a trusted community

Technology Category

Cybersecurity & Privacy - Identity & Authentication Management

Applicable Industries

Automotive

Applicable Functions

Logistics & Transportation

Use Cases

Fraud Detection

Services

Cybersecurity Services

The Challenge

Turo, a car sharing marketplace, implemented Sift in 2013 for payment protection. As they grew, they saw account takeover (ATO) becoming a widespread, industry-agnostic issue and took proactive measures to maintain the security of their community. To prevent ATO, Turo required users to verify their identity when logging into an aged account, including resetting the account password. This process created serious friction for the user and a lot of time spent on manual password resets and identity verification for the fraud team. The team was also manually reviewing every user to stave off ATO, labeling thousands of events every day in order to stay on top of their increase in activity. It took 100+ hours of manual operations a week to effectively defend against ATO attempts. Turo needed a way to introduce friction for malicious users, maintain a seamless experience for good users, and spend less time managing fraud.

About The Customer

Turo is a car sharing marketplace where Guests can book any car they want, wherever they want it, from a vibrant community of trusted Hosts across the US, Canada, the UK, and Germany. Guests choose from a unique selection of nearby cars, while Hosts earn extra money to offset the costs of car ownership. A pioneer of the sharing economy and travel industry, Turo is a safe, supportive community over 10 million strong with more than 350,000 vehicles listed. As Turo has expanded into global territories, Sift is scaling with them, enabling them to grow without risk while providing the best customer experiences to their users. They’ve created a safe environment that has encouraged existing Guests and Hosts to keep using Turo, and built a reputation of trustworthiness that brings new users to the platform.

The Solution

When Turo decided to get the jump on ATO, they didn’t hesitate in implementing Sift Account Defense. After evaluating other fraud prevention vendors, Turo found that only Sift enabled them to leverage a global customer network along with innovative technologies to navigate the ever-evolving fraud landscape. Upon automating, the results for Turo were immediate. They were no longer spending 100+ hours a week on manual review, thanks to Sift’s unrivaled accuracy. Turo was able to automate the process of restoring account access to users. Guests and Hosts now self-remediate using two-factor authentication, and receive a manual password reset that gets them back into their accounts within seconds, not days. Additionally, Sift’s dynamic Workflows allow Turo the freedom to adjust the threshold of their fraud models and moderate activity relative to how many fraud resources they may have on a given day.

Operational Impact

Turo has reduced their overall fraud by 98%, and they’ve completely blocked all ATO attempts.
Gone too are the days of hours spent on manual review, freeing up Turo’s Trust & Safety team to focus on other aspects of the business.
Guests and Hosts have benefitted from a stronger user experience – they no longer have to sit through days of back and forth to regain access to their accounts, and aren’t subjected to the stringent friction that suspicious users face.

Quantitative Benefit