#52 - TSFS: Year One - everything you missed so far

Nov 8

I cannot believe it’s been a year already.

When I published issue zero of The Saturday Fraud Strategist, I wrote this:

“My aim is to make each newsletter practical and actionable. My goal: compel you to take one action every week. Even if it's just to send a clarification question to your team.”

34 subscribers received that email.

Today, exactly one year later, you’re one of over 700 subscribers who’ve been getting my weekly emails.

Honestly? I didn’t think I'd make it this far.

And it’s all thanks to you, dear reader.

Thank you for subscribing, reading, asking, and challenging me on a weekly basis for the past 52 weeks. It’s what keeps me going.

Speaking of which, here’s one question I get very often from new readers:

“Hey, how can I read your past newsletters?”

The simple but often overlooked answer is–on my website (just scroll down a bit).

But at the same time, I know that by now it must be overwhelming and new readers are asking themselves: “Where do I start?”

So this week I’ve decided to do something a bit different and collect all of last year’s TSFS issues, add a short description to each, and curate them into different themes.

If you joined mid-ride, if you want to get a refresher, or if you want to share it with your closest loved ones, this is it.

Side note: I highly recommend bookmarking this page on my website so you can always find this list quickly.

So without further ado, here’s everything from “TSFS: Year One”:

Strategic Frameworks & Defense Architecture

Issue 06: My Zero-Cost Fraud Protection Guide for Fintech Startups 7 essential fraud prevention steps you can implement immediately without budget or vendors.

Issue 10: Build vs Buy: When DIYing Fraud Tech Makes Sense Clear criteria to determine when building internal fraud tech delivers ROI versus buying vendor solutions.

Issue 12: Why fraud beats your KYC (and how to fix it) Why KYC checks don't stop professional fraudsters and the 3-layer defense system that actually works.

Issue 15: Is your fraud strategy making you more vulnerable? Why prevention-focused strategies often backfire and when mitigation approaches work better.

Issue 25: Why Your ATO Fraud Protection Is Failing Why most ATO solutions fail and the specific features to demand from vendors.

Issue 29: Beyond AI vs Rules: The 3-Layer Cake of Fraud Defense How to layer AI, rules, and manual review for maximum fraud prevention effectiveness.

Issue 34: 15-min test: Are you stuck in firefighting mode? A quick self-assessment to identify if your fraud strategy is reactive rather than proactive.

Issue 39: What fraudsters fear more than AI The overlooked fraud prevention tactics that create more friction for fraudsters than sophisticated technology.

Issue 41: When NOT to act fast in risk management Why rushing to respond to every fraud signal can hurt your business more than help it.

Team & Organizational Design

Issue 03: Are you tracking these KPIs? The essential fraud metrics every fintech must monitor to catch problems before they become disasters.

Issue 14: Is your fraud team actually accountable? A KPI framework that creates real accountability and drives performance across fraud teams.

Issue 16: This one metric predicts if your fraud team is ready to scale The single KPI that reveals whether your fraud prevention can handle business growth.

Issue 31: Your CEO Wants Fraud Fixed Today. Your Team Needs Months How to manage the timeline gap between executive pressure and realistic fraud prevention implementation.

Issue 37: Want 80% better results? Downskill your DS team Why training data scientists in fraud investigation techniques dramatically improves model performance.

Issue 49: 4 mistakes that stop fraud teams from scaling The organizational and operational bottlenecks that prevent fraud teams from growing effectively.

False Positive Management

Issue 04: The 5 ways to spot False Positives Practical methods to identify which blocked transactions are actually good customers.

Issue 13: The 4 hidden drivers behind false positives Why false positives persist despite your best efforts and how to systematically reduce them.

Issue 43: False positives cost you less than you think Why the conventional wisdom about false positive costs is wrong and what to optimize instead.

Issue 50: The overlooked truth about false positives The counterintuitive reality about false positives that changes how you should manage them.

Rules & Detection Logic

Issue 09: Why Velocity Checks Kill Conversion (and how to fix it) How to implement velocity checks that stop fraud without blocking legitimate customers.

Issue 19: How to stop losing sleep over potential fraud disasters Simple safety net rules that prevent catastrophic fraud losses while you sleep.

Issue 26: How to Build Fraud Rules that Outperform AI Models The systematic approach to designing fraud rules that deliver better results than machine learning.

Issue 27: AI Rule Showdown: How Sardine, Oscilar & Seon differ Exclusive breakdown of how three leading fraud vendors approach AI-powered rule automation.

Issue 35: When your rules look great but performance tanks The critical measurement gaps that make fraud rules look effective while secretly destroying performance.

Machine Learning & Models

Issue 01: How to optimize your AI score conversion in 4 steps A proven method to dramatically improve AI fraud score performance without changing models.

Issue 38: Don't refresh your fraud model until you read this The hidden costs and risks of model refreshes that most teams discover too late.

Issue 42: 5 ways to build fraud models without perfect data Practical techniques for developing effective fraud models when your data is messy or incomplete.

Issue 21: Are you mislabeling credit losses as fraud? How to accurately separate fraud from credit losses using a proven labeling framework.

Process & Workflow Optimization

Issue 11: 1 Hour in Excel = 3 Weeks Head Start on Fraudsters Simple Excel techniques to detect fraud attacks 3 weeks earlier than traditional methods.

Issue 17: The hidden time leaks in your fraud defense A 6-step framework to measure and improve your fraud reaction time for maximum effectiveness.

Issue 18: Is your fraud team working backwards? How to prioritize fraud cases for maximum ROI instead of first-in-first-out processing.

Issue 32: STOP obsessing over accuracy, START optimizing efficiency How focusing on speed instead of perfect accuracy leads to better fraud prevention results.

Issue 46: Black Friday prep: Forget fraud, do this instead Why obsessing over fraud during peak season misses the bigger picture of what actually drives losses.

PSP Fraud VAS Strategy

Issue 44: Why PSPs are getting fraud VAS wrong The fundamental misunderstanding PSPs have about what merchants really need from fraud prevention services.

Issue 45: PSP fraud VAS strategy: Build vs buy vs operate Strategic framework for PSPs deciding how to offer fraud prevention value-added services to merchants.

Issue 47: 3 fraud vendor pitfalls that kill PSP profits Critical mistakes PSPs make when partnering with fraud vendors for value-added services.

LLM Applications in Fraud Detection

Issue 05: Claude vs. Fraud: A 3-Hour Game-Changing Test Groundbreaking experiment showing how AI can detect fraud without training data.

Issue 22: I asked Claude to score fraud AGAIN. Then this happened Follow-up AI fraud detection experiments with surprising results about the future of fraud prevention.

Issue 48: Why LLMs will never replace ML models The fundamental reproducibility challenges that prevent LLMs from replacing traditional machine learning in fraud scoring.

Issue 51: I gave Claude a hint. Results shocked me. How small prompt engineering changes dramatically impact LLM fraud detection performance.

Vendor Selection & Management

Issue 02: Why most Fintechs fail in Vendor Selection A 6-step process to avoid costly vendor selection mistakes that plague most fintech fraud teams.

Issue 20: The hidden reasons your "best-in-class" vendor is failing you Why top-tier fraud vendors underperform and how to evaluate if yours is actually right for your business.

Issue 24: Selecting a fraud vendor: The critical detail most miss The overlooked factor in vendor selection that determines whether you'll see results in months or years.

Issue 36: Why leaders choose worse fraud tools The psychological factors that drive executives to choose inferior fraud solutions despite better alternatives available.

Issue 40: Vendor disasters start with how you test them Why testing AI scores leads to vendor selection disasters and what to test instead for long-term success.

Stories & Industry Insights

Issue 07: My Most Haunting Failure A personal story about losing a critical POC and the lasting lesson about accepting uncertainty in fraud prevention.

Issue 08: Dark web services bypass KYC checks for $150 Exclusive investigation into how fraudsters bypass leading KYC vendors for under $200.

Issue 23: Confessions of a fraud CTO: My million-dollar algorithm mistake An honest account of an expensive technical decision and what it taught about balancing innovation with pragmatism.

Issue 28: I used to stalk people on Facebook (legally) Behind the scenes of manual fraud investigation work and what it reveals about modern fraud patterns.

Issue 30: 240% fraud spike caught Fintechs sleeping How first-party fraud exploded 240% in 2024 and why most fintechs are unprepared.

Issue 33: My stolen identity is cheating on my wife A darkly humorous look at becoming a victim of identity theft and what it teaches about fraud prevention.

In the meantime, that’s all for this week.

See you next Saturday.

P.S. If you feel like you're running out of time and need some expert advice with getting your fraud strategy on track, here's how I can help you:

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Chen Zamir