New Enhanced Fraud Protection Minimizes Discount Abuse for Brands Marketing to Students With Gated, Exclusive Offers Globally

SheerID, the market leader in digital verification technology for gated, exclusive offers, launched instant student verification in 191 countries recognized by the United Nations. The industry’s first worldwide student verification offering, SheerID makes it possible for brands to use gated offers to engage college and university students around the globe—the primary customer segment to market to Gen Z—as they create connections with preferred brands. Students simply enter a few pieces of information— like name, university, and date of birth—and SheerID instantly verifies their eligibility to receive a brand’s student offer. By honoring students’ current life stage and respecting their desire to maintain control of personal data, gated offers are a unique, privacy-friendly strategy for marketers to initiate long-term relationships with the most influential consumer group in modern history.

The largest generation to date, Gen Z comprises 2 billion people worldwide and are projected to account for 40% of consumer spending by 2020. As true digital natives, three-quarters of Gen Zers name smartphones as their device of choice. Plus, privacy matters: according to our consumer survey, 87% of Gen Zers report that keeping their personal information private was more important to them than popularity measures such as getting “likes” on social media. To effectively market to a worldwide Gen Z audience, brands must connect with them on new terms: in an invited, personalized, instant, and digital way that respects their privacy. SheerID delivers on these requirements, enabling students to opt-in to gated offers and verify eligibility based on minimal, easy-to-remember data such as name, email, and school.

“Analytical skills are essential for today’s students to be successful in the workforce,” said Courtney Totten, Senior Manager of Academic Programs at Tableau. “By easily verifying student eligibility and quickly denying fraudulent requests, SheerID has helped us expand our program and reach hundreds of thousands of students around the world.”

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Also announced today is SheerID’s enhanced fraud prevention, which gives brands added protection from the perils of a global marketplace. Traditional methods of verifying student status, such as checking email domain, can result in fraud and abuse higher than 35% and hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue. This risk increases in many fraud hotspots around the world where there is a higher occurrence of identity spoofing (adopting an identity that is not yours), constructing false identities, and other subtle patterns of abuse that can be easily shared on social media. SheerID’s latest update addresses these challenges with an additional layer of fraud protection by cross-checking specific identity attributes (e.g. name and IP or email address) with third-party sources to prevent falsified documents, identity spoofing, and other forms of discount abuse in geographies most known for fraud. It also identifies suspicious activity and images with sophisticated algorithms.

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Built with Gen Z in mind, SheerID’s worldwide student verification delivers on the requirements for the next generation consumer. The platform is:

• Instant and accurate: Part of a seamless, in-brand experience, SheerID’s Verified Identity Network—1.3 billion consumer attributes across nearly 9,000 authoritative data sources—instantly confirms enrollment status for students at higher education institutions in the 191 UN-recognized countries.
• Mobile-optimized: A responsive web design that fits any screen and simplified verification form with minimal fields maximizes conversion. Brands can use SMS to re-engage students who don’t complete the purchase, as well as nurture the customer relationship over time with ongoing exclusive offers and experiences.
• Personalized and localized: A localized user experience in each country is made possible with  support for 25 of the world’s primary languages. Additional language support is also available.

“Today’s announcement marks another major milestone for SheerID and a major milestone for the industry,” said Jake Weatherly, SheerID of CEO. “Building authentic, trust-based relationships with students around the world is an imperative for every brand as students are literally the next-generation consumer. Instantly verifying any university student, anywhere in the world, for special access to a gated, exclusive offer ushers in a tsunami of opportunity for brands who want to reach Gen Z in a privacy-friendly context.”

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