How graph analytics can prevent buy-now, pay-later fraud

A series of coordinated smash-and-grab thefts in the San Francisco Bay Area dominated our news feeds at the start of the 2021 holiday season. Dozens of people stormed San Francisco's Louis Vuitton store and a Nordstrom in nearby Walnut Creek, emerging with handfuls of luxury items valued at more than $100,000. These attacks, according to law enforcement, were organized on social media and committed by people who didn't know each other. There is now a digital version of this organized retail theft -- and it is silent, nameless, and faceless -- and it uses a new type of process called BNPL. BNPL (buy now, pay later) is a type of installment loan that lets you make purchases online and pay them off in weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly installments.