Systems and Methods for Fraudulent Account Detection and Management

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2017098219-A1
Application number	US-201514876613-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Oct 6, 2015
Priority date	Oct 6, 2015
Publication date	Apr 6, 2017
Grant date	—

Abstract

Provided herein are systems and methods of monitoring account activity in a streaming media environment. An exemplary system includes a monitoring system, an account creation and management system, and an account payment system. The monitoring system is coupled to the account creation and management system and the account payment system via a network. The processing device of the monitoring system retrieves account information for a first user account. Account information includes user consumption information and user payment information associated with the first user account. The processing device determines a fraudulent account score for the first user account based on at least one of the user consumption information, the user payment information, and account identification information. When the fraudulent account score exceeds an upper threshold, the processing device automatically deletes the first user account from at least one of the account creation and management system and the accounts payment system.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A system for monitoring account activity in an online streaming media environment, the system comprising:
an account monitoring system having a processing device in communication with a plurality of storage systems including at least a first storage system and a second storage system; an account creation and management system having account identification information and user consumption information stored on the first storage system of the plurality of storage systems; and an account payment system having user payment information stored on a second storage system of the plurality of storage systems, and wherein the account monitoring system is coupled to the account creation and management system and the account payment system via a network, and wherein
the processing device of the account monitoring system:
retrieves account information for a first user account, the account information comprising user consumption information and the user payment information associated with the first user account;
determines a fraudulent account score for the first user account, wherein the fraudulent account score is based on at least one of the user consumption information, the user payment information, and account identification information; and
when the fraudulent account score exceeds an upper threshold account score value, automatically deletes the first user account from at least one of the account creation and management system and the accounts payment system.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the account monitoring system is to determine the fraudulent account score for the first user based the user consumption information, the user consumption information comprising at least one of:
an internet protocol (IP) address associated with the first user account; a geographic location indicated by a content distribution node that has delivered content to devices associated with the first user account; a list of the devices associated with the first user account; and an amount of content consumed by devices in the list of the devices associated with the first user account.

3 . The system of claim 2 , wherein a geographic location of the IP address associated with the first user account is different than a geographic location indicated by the content distribution node.

4 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the amount of content consumed by the devices associated with the first user account is substantially zero.

5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the user consumption information comprises consumption information for each of a plurality of user profiles associated with the first user account.

6 . The system of claim 1 , wherein automatically deleting the first user account comprises associated a fraudulent status tag with the first user account.

7 . The system of claim 6 , wherein the fraudulent status tag is one of:
a credit card validation fraud tag identifying the account as resulting from a credit card validation attempt; a free trial fraud tag identifying the account as resulting from an attempt to misuse a free trial account; or an account takeover tag identifying the account as being accessed without consent of a legal owner of the first user account.

8 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the user payment information comprises a credit card account number, wherein the account payment system communicates with a card issuer system to determine whether the credit card account number is valid.

9 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the account identification information comprises at least one of:
an email address included on a list of fraud-indicating domains; an improperly formatted name; or a name previously associated with a fraudulent account.

10 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the account monitoring system is further operable to:
determine when the fraudulent account score exceeds a lower threshold account score value; and include the first user account with a list of potentially fraudulent accounts when the fraudulent account score exceeds the lower threshold account value score and does not exceed the upper threshold account score value.

11 . The system of claim 1 , wherein account monitoring system is further operable to determine the fraudulent account score at a pre-determined time before an end of a trial period.

12 . A server system for monitoring user account activity, the server system comprising:
a processing device in communication with a plurality of storage systems including at least a first storage system and a second storage system; a local storage device in communication with the processing device, the local storage device comprising an fraudulent account detection application, wherein the processing device executes the fraudulent account detection application to:
retrieve, from at least one of the first and second storage systems, account information for a first user account;
determine an end date of a trial period associated with the first user account;
determine, prior to an end date of the trial period, a fraudulent account score for the first user account, wherein the fraudulent account score is based on the account information for the first user account; and
when the fraudulent account score exceeds an upper threshold account score value, automatically sending an instruction to delete the first user account to an account administration system.

13 . The server system of claim 12 , wherein the determining the fraudulent account score comprises processing a Hadoop job comprising account information for a plurality of user accounts.

14 . The server system of claim 12 , wherein the account information for the first user account comprises:
user consumption information identifying items consumed in connection with the first user account; user payment information identifying a payment source associated with the first user account; and account identification information.

15 . The server system of claim 12 , wherein the processing device further executes the fraudulent detection application to:
determine, prior to the end date of the trial period, that the fraudulent account score exceeds a lower threshold account score value; and include the first user account with a list of potentially fraudulent accounts when the fraudulent account score exceeds the lower threshold account value score and does not exceed the upper threshold account score value.

16 . The server system of claim 15 , wherein the processing device is in communication with a payment processing system and wherein the processing device executes the fraudulent account detection application to request verification of a payment source included in the account information for the first user account.

17 . A method comprising:
retrieving, by a processing device in communication with one or more storage devices storing account information, account information for a first user account, the account information comprising at least one of user consumption information, user payment information, or account identification information associated with the first user account; determining a trial period associated with the first user account; prior to an end of the trial period associated with the first user account, determining, by the processing device, a fraudulent account score for the first user account, wherein the fraudulent account score is based on the account information for the first user account; and when the fraudulent account score exceeds an upper threshold account score value, automatically deleting the first us

Assignees

• Netflix Inc

Inventors

• Peram Rudra
• Chan Jason

Classifications

• G06Q30/0225 Primary

  Avoiding frauds · CPC title

• H04L67/306

  User profiles · CPC title

• G06Q20/4016 Primary

  involving fraud or risk level assessment in transaction processing · CPC title

• G06Q20/3224

  Transactions dependent on location of M-devices · CPC title