LOS ALTOS, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 05/26/10 -- ThreatMetrix™, a fast growing provider of fraud detection solutions that do not require personally identifiable information (PII), today announced that Offerpal Media, the leader in virtual currency payment alternatives, has selected ThreatMetrix to help control online fraud and abuse.

Offerpal Media works with leading direct payment providers, from PayPal, Visa and MasterCard to Zong, Boku, DaoPay, Amazon Payments, Paymo, Ultimate Game Card, PayByCash, Social Gold and more. Additionally, the company recently announced new payment options including pre-paid debit cards, phone cards, e-payment systems, parent-approved payments and more, from partners such as Zeus Research and STi Prepaid, paysafecard, MyCard, Rixty, BillMyParents, ClickandBuy and others covering nearly 200 countries.

The ThreatMetrix Fraud Network will give Offerpal Media added visibility into users' account information and online behaviors to help the company more easily identify potentially fraudulent activities.

"We operate in a fast-moving, high growth industry," said Stacy Martin, director of customer support, Offerpal Media. "We needed to implement a solution on a large scale within weeks. We felt that the ThreatMetrix Fraud Network would give us a unique perspective on fraud beyond what we had created ourselves. By integrating the ThreatMetrix Fraud Network into our own fraud platform, we feel that we have been able to create a best-of-breed solution and provide our customers with the best possible fraud protection within the shortest timeframe. The integration of the ThreatMetrix Fraud Network into the Offerpal Media platform has been seamless, straightforward, easy and required little support."

"One of our main goals was to go beyond just having a set of simple rules for flagging potentially risky transactions," continued Martin. "What we really needed was the ability to pierce the proxy to determine the actual location of a computer, collect more detailed information on each user, their transaction, and the device they were using, combined with a rules-based engine that would take all these elements into consideration and create a score from which we could accept, reject or hold the transaction for further review."

Concealing true device location via hidden proxy systems is a common technique of cyber criminals. By using a hidden proxy fraudsters pretend to be in one location, when the device they are using to execute a fraudulent transaction is actually located in a different location.

"A lot of the fraud we see is international but masks itself as coming from the U.S.," said Martin. "We tailor some of our business to publishers who support international audiences so it was mission critical that we address it."

Previous anti-fraud approaches were based on in-house solutions, but Offerpal Media chose to go with the ThreatMetrix Fraud Network after a review of competitive offerings. "We looked at a variety of anti-fraud solutions but chose ThreatMetrix as it characterizes transactions far beyond just IP geolocation and lets me prevent fraud upfront, in real-time, the first time, rather than after the fact."

One of Martin's initial concerns over implementing a new solution into his existing anti-fraud environment was the potential impact on system performance. "I was initially concerned about the potential negative impact we might see on performance with additional profiling but it never materialized. As with any new technology, it's a leap of faith. Is it going to do what they say it will do? I'm happy to say that I haven't seen any negative impacts on performance."

According to Martin, one of the key benefits Offerpal Media values is the flexibility and the ability to customize the rules-based templates that help them take the guesswork out of determining whether to accept, reject or further evaluate transactions.

"One of the biggest pluses of the ThreatMetrix Fraud Network is that it is flexible to my business requirements," said Martin. "I don't have to reengineer my business to the limitations of some technology. I can set rules and transaction scoring specific to certain games and publishers. It gives us the flexibility to respond immediately to potential fraud attacks. Our fraud analyst is able to make changes to the business rules on a real-time basis. There's no coding or release cycles involved. If our fraud analyst sees an instance of fraud and it appears to be a pattern, then he is able to go into the rules engine, change the scoring, and block further fraudulent transactions in seconds. That's powerful."

"Every one of our publishers is concerned about fraud on their businesses and the threat of chargebacks related to fraud," said Martin. "We feel that the ThreatMetrix Fraud Network is a real differentiator for us in its ability to identify potential fraudsters and characterize transactions far beyond just IP geolocation."

To view a video on the ThreatMetrix Fraud Network, visit: http://threatmetrix.com/resource-center/videos-and-demos/introducing-the-threatmetrix-fraud-network/

To read a whitepaper on the ThreatMetrix Fraud Network, visit: http://info.threatmetrix.com/ThreatMetrix-fraud-network.html

About Offerpal Media

Offerpal Media is the leader in virtual currency monetization for online games, virtual worlds and social networks. The company's turnkey payment platform gives consumers the opportunity to earn virtual currency for free by taking part in targeted advertising offers, shopping at big-brand retailers, completing online surveys, watching videos or otherwise engaging with brands. Since its launch in 2007, Offerpal has issued more than 1 trillion virtual points to over 200 million consumers across 2,000 publishers. The company is headquartered in Fremont, California. Investors include Interwest Capital, North Bridge Venture Partners, and D. E. Shaw Ventures. For more information, visit www.offerpalmedia.com

About ThreatMetrix

ThreatMetrix helps companies stop web fraud and enable e-commerce. The ThreatMetrix Fraud Network helps online businesses verify new accounts, authorize payments and transactions and authenticate user logins in real-time without relying on personally identifiable information (PII). ThreatMetrix profiles the device used in an online transaction so companies can determine whether the users are fraudsters or customers. ThreatMetrix device profiling goes beyond browser fingerprinting to identify the device, bypass proxies and detect the use of botnets. ThreatMetrix' simple and cost-effective SaaS approach to implementation enables companies to get results in hours or days, rather than weeks or months. The company serves a rapidly growing customer base in the U.S. and around the world across a variety of industries including social networks (dating, gaming), financial services, e-commerce, affiliate marketing and payments. For more information, visit www.threatmetrix.com or call 1-650-625-1451.

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