---
title: Merchant Fraud Alliance 2026: The Good, The Bad & The Fraudulent
source_page: https://www.sardine.ai/media/fraudology/episodes/merchant-fraud-alliance-2026
canonical: https://www.sardine.ai/media/fraudology/episodes/merchant-fraud-alliance-2026
format: text/markdown
date: 2026-10-15T04:01:00.000Z
description: Merchant Fraud Alliance 2026 brought merchants together in Chicago. Recapping the AI bootcamp, deep dives, and sessions on ATO, build vs buy, and PSP gaps…
---

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# Merchant Fraud Alliance 2026: The Good, The Bad & The Fraudulent

**Published:** 2026-10-15T04:01:00.000Z

Merchant Fraud Alliance 2026 brought merchants together in Chicago. Recapping the AI bootcamp, deep dives, and sessions on ATO, build vs buy, and PSP gaps…

Welcome back to Fraudology.
I’ve now had a few days to recover from the inaugural Merchant Fraud Alliance conference in Chicago. I helped create this event. Watching two days of conversation among merchants go from a plan to a room full of people was a real highlight for me.
The Merchant Fraud Alliance 2026 conference was built around a gap I had heard about for years. Merchants wanted a place to compare notes with peers without feeling like the target of a sales pitch. We kept the ratio at roughly three merchants for every solution provider, invited sponsors based on what their customers say about them, and added merchant only deep dives. I explain why we made those choices, then walk through the AI bootcamp, the deep dives, and the main stage sessions. Topics include fraud as a service, app cloning, account takeover trends, executive scorecards, build versus buy decisions, and the PSP gaps merchants keep running into.
This episode is for everyone who couldn’t be there. Two days of sessions won’t fit into one episode. I’m sharing the moments that stuck with me the most.
What you’ll hear in this episode:
Why we built the Merchant Fraud Alliance as a merchant first fraud practitioner event, and how invite only sponsorship shaped the room
How the merchant only deep dives worked, including a fraud center of excellence discussion, a refund fraud ecommerce session for food delivery and retailers, and war room roundtables for retailers and marketplaces
What came out of the AI fraud bootcamp for merchants, from Slack alerts and chargeback research to governance questions and the rising cost of AI tokens
Why a fraud as a service session encouraged attendees to treat fraud threat intelligence from Telegram, Discord, and the dark web as an input to decisions at the time of purchase
What one vendor’s data showed about app clone fraud detection, with chargebacks running roughly four times higher when cloned apps were involved
Ecommerce fraud trends 2026, including a threefold rise in account takeover over two quarters and agent traffic that one vendor found to be nine times riskier than human traffic
Why fraud now moves upstream and downstream of the payment, and the merchant PSP fraud gaps that appear when you rely only on processor tools
Lessons in cross functional fraud collaboration, and how to build a fraud executive scorecard with metrics your executives actually want
A look at the build vs buy fraud stack panel, a non payment fraud discussion covering loyalty fraud and promo abuse, and research on how cyber signals can improve payment fraud decisions
You should listen to this episode if you:
Couldn’t attend and want a practical summary of the sessions and the ideas that came out of them
Are curious what a merchant only fraud conference looks like and whether it’s worth attending next year
Are exploring generative AI in fraud operations and want to hear what other merchants are doing, and what they’re struggling with
Struggle to explain fraud to executives and need a better way to present your data
Are weighing a build or buy decision, or feel limited by the fraud tools your PSP provides
Deal with refund abuse, promo abuse, or loyalty fraud and want to compare notes with peers
### Episode notes
Why we built the Merchant Fraud Alliance this way
The last conference I worked on closed its doors after an acquisition, and it left a gap that merchants kept asking me about. I partnered with the team behind Fraud Fight Club, who handled logistics and sponsor relationships while I focused on content and getting merchants into the room. We filled 15 sponsor slots with invited companies, chosen on what their customers say about them, how they act in the market, and whether their product does what it claims. We didn’t sell vendor tickets. The only way for a solution provider to attend was to sponsor. The result was a little over 200 attendees and about three merchants for every solution provider. A practitioner should be able to find a peer to talk to without being interrupted by a pitch, and I think we got close to that.
The AI bootcamp on day zero
The day before the conference, merchants from PlayStation and GoDaddy led a four hour AI bootcamp for about 40 to 50 people. A poll of the room showed most attendees were still experimenting or piloting. The presenters shared how they use generative AI for chargeback response research, for exception based alerts sent to a Slack channel when something like account signups spikes, and for standardizing how analysts identify account takeover. There was healthy debate about whether uniform procedures help or whether different analyst approaches widen the net. Two honest challenges came up as well. Some employees hesitate to hand their expertise to a model, and some teams that moved early are finding that token costs can rival headcount for certain tasks. Attendees took home three AI skills, a fraud case review assistant, a fraud trend update writer, and a write like me tool.
The deep dives, where the best conversations happened
The deep dives were merchant only, ran 45 minutes, and held about 20 people under Chatham House rules. I was the emcee, didn’t attend a single one, and that still bothers me. Every merchant I’ve spoken with said it’s where the magic happened, and the only complaint is that they should be longer. Megan Mahoney from ZoomInfo began a session on building a fraud center of excellence and barely got through her slides before the group took over with their own ideas. Sudhir Lanka from GrubHub led a discussion on refund fraud for food delivery and retailers, and there were war room roundtables for retailers and marketplaces. That is exactly what the format is for, peers trading what worked and what didn’t.
Fraud as a service, app clones, and threat intelligence
Incognia, our main sponsor, covered deepfakes, AI images, and the fraud as a service toolbox. What stood out to me was app cloning. In one ecommerce merchant’s data, chargebacks ran roughly four times higher when cloned apps were involved, which makes app clone fraud detection worth a closer look. Steve Diamond from RH-ISAC led a deep dive on how fraud as a service operates and why collective defense matters. His practical advice was to have someone own threat intelligence, whether that’s a third party, a dedicated role, or a part time responsibility, and have them watch what criminals say about your company on Telegram, Discord, and the dark web. Those signals are most useful when they reach the decision at the time of purchase, and several attendees told me they hadn’t thought about using threat intelligence that way.
What the data said about account takeover and agent traffic
On the panel for anatomy of sophisticated account takeovers, Rebekah Moody shared Darwinium data showing account takeover up threefold over two quarters. Which makes phishing, credential collection, and credential stuffing faster and easier to scale. The same data showed agent traffic running about nine times riskier than human traffic, and only about one in four agents declared themselves. Those are one vendor’s figures, so I treat them as a signal and not an industry benchmark. They do match what I keep hearing from merchants, and the damage often ends with stored value being drained, whether that’s gift cards, store credit, or loyalty points.
Talking to your own company
Two sessions drew the most conversation, and both were about communication. A longtime friend presented on stage alone for the first time and spoke about bridging cross functional gaps. Her message was to look at data from other departments and not only our own, and to remember that we’re only looking at about 3 to 5% of transactions. We shouldn’t add friction for everyone because a small share needs it. One team told me they finally understood why other departments weren’t listening, since they had only been presenting their own data. Holly Sandberg followed with the fraud metrics executives actually care about and how to build an executive scorecard, which matters because fraud teams tend to send detailed emails when leaders want the high level view. The non-payment fraud panel with Booking.com, Mastercard, and Seon added another angle, covering loyalty fraud, promo abuse, and referral stacking, the fraud that never turns into a chargeback.
Build versus buy, PSP gaps, and cyber signals
The landscape panel with Eric Goodman from Visa, Julien Laurent from Group-IB, and Dajana, who works in gift card processing, talked about fraud moving upstream and downstream of the payment. Merchants who rely only on payment data or PSP tools are struggling, because most attacks happen before a payment method is ever entered, and post transaction fraud like refunds and chargebacks needs attention too. The build versus buy panel, with Booking.com, Dan Pinto from Fingerprint, Mark Porteous, Jarrod Price from InComm Payments, and the CEO of Incognia, reflected how merchants now often build some tools and buy others, creating a mixed risk stack. Jarrod joined Aaron Frye later to talk about how merchants can push PSPs for more data and close gaps together. Reverb and Certifi closed the loop with research showing merchant performance improves when fraud teams work closely with their cyber team.
### Key takeaways
A merchant only conference with about three merchants for every solution provider changes the quality of conversation, because practitioners can compare notes without constant pitches.
Most attendees at the AI bootcamp were still experimenting or piloting, and the presenters suggested asking why work is structured a certain way before asking how AI can make it faster.
Generative AI can support chargeback research and exception based alerts, but teams should plan for governance, employee concerns about sharing expertise, and token costs.
Fraud threat intelligence from Telegram, Discord, and the dark web is most useful when someone owns it and passes the signals to decisions at the time of purchase.
App clone fraud detection deserves attention, since one ecommerce merchant saw chargebacks roughly four times higher when cloned apps were involved.
Account takeover and credential stuffing are growing quickly, and one vendor reported a threefold rise in account takeover over two quarters.
Fraud moves upstream and downstream of the payment, so merchants who rely only on PSP tools will have gaps in what they can see.
Cross functional collaboration starts with looking at other departments’ data and remembering that only a small share of transactions need friction.
A fraud executive scorecard works best when it gives leaders the high level view they want instead of the detail fraud teams prefer to send.
Many merchants now build some of their fraud stack and buy the rest, and vendor selection should weigh whether the product works and what current customers say.
### Final takeaway
What stayed with me most wasn’t any single statistic. It was watching merchants lean across a table and trade what worked and what didn’t, with nobody trying to sell them anything. That is what an alliance is supposed to feel like. We’re already planning next year. Follow the Merchant Fraud Alliance on LinkedIn for updates, and tell me which sessions you’d like me to dig into on the podcast. If a speaker’s company allows it, I’ll try to bring them on.
Episode resources & links
Connect with Karisse Hendrick | LinkedIn
Host of the Fraudology Podcast
Award-Winning Cyberfraud Expert
Ecommerce Fraud Prevention Consultant
Startup Advisor, Keynote Speaker, and
Consultant to Fortune 500 merchants