Case Study

A Vaccine Against Fake Accounts: Buymed & SHIELD's Prescription for a Fraud-Free Healthcare Marketplace

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Industry
Healthcare / E-commerce
Public
Region
Southeast Asia
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This case study is available in Vietnamese.

Founded in 2018, Buymed is a leading healthcare e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia. In Vietnam alone, it has partnered with more than 1,000 pharmaceutical companies, ensuring a consistent and trustworthy supply of high-quality pharmaceutical products and medical equipment to over 35,000 pharmacies. Buymed continues to grow its presence across the region, having most recently expanded into Cambodia and Thailand.

Key Takeaways

  • Eliminated fake accounts and fake product listings
  • 190% increase in multi-accounting detection 
  • Ensured the uninterrupted supply of high-quality medical goods

Fraudsters Threaten The Health of E-Commerce Platforms

Buymed has established itself as a critical part of Vietnam’s healthcare ecosystem by connecting pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, and clinics - improving reliable access to high-quality medical products for patients and consumers across the region. 

Building a trusted platform is a non-negotiable for Buymed. However, fraudsters pose a threat to healthcare marketplaces and their activities could pose severe consequences. From creating fake listings for counterfeit medicine to hoarding essential supplies, fraudulent activity can disrupt the industry and endanger patient safety. With expansion plans in the pipeline, Buymed partnered with SHIELD, the device-first risk AI platform to tackle fraud at the root and stay proactive against evolving threats. 

“Protecting the healthcare ecosystem is a critical pillar for our growth. SHIELD provides Buymed with a crucial first line of defense against fraud, helping us ensure fair access to medical supplies while maintaining our platform’s integrity and trustworthiness without infringing on personal data. With SHIELD as our partner, we can confidently expand into new markets."
Hoang Nguyen
CEO, Buymed
“Protecting the healthcare ecosystem is a critical pillar for our growth. SHIELD provides Buymed with a crucial first line of defense against fraud, helping us ensure fair access to medical supplies while maintaining our platform’s integrity and trustworthiness without infringing on personal data. With SHIELD as our partner, we can confidently expand into new markets."
Hoang Nguyen
CEO, Buymed

Diagnosing Potential Issues

Pharmacies rely on platforms to guarantee the legitimacy of their partners, the medication they sell, and the supplies reaching patients. Unfortunately, fraudsters exploit this trust for their own benefit, often creating fake accounts en masse to lay the groundwork for malicious activities.

Fraudsters can impersonate genuine brands to sell counterfeit or low-quality medical goods. They face no repercussions from complaints due to their fake identities. This poses serious health risks to consumers, and quickly erodes trust in both the platform and the imitated brand. 

Fraud syndicates can also create armies of fake accounts to manipulate platforms. These accounts are used to artificially inflate product ratings, exploit one-time-only sign-up bonuses and referral incentives, and bypass purchase limits on high-demand products. By controlling both buyer and seller identities, fraudsters can hoard products and resell them at inflated prices, depriving genuine customers of essential medication. 

In some cases, dishonest delivery partners from third-party logistics companies can collude with fraudsters to divert packages, falsify deliveries, and resell goods on other sites. This results in stock shortages and a loss of trust in the platform.  

Prescribing the Right Medicine for Fraud

SHIELD’s Device Intelligence solution has empowered Buymed to proactively stop fraud at the root. Buymed leveraged the SHIELD Device ID, the global standard for device identification, to persistently identify devices controlling multiple user accounts. This capability allowed Buymed to stop fraudsters before they could exploit signup bonuses and incentives, effectively shutting down multi-accounting and promo abuse at the source. 

The actionable insights from SHIELD’s Risk Intelligence enabled Buymed to customize their risk thresholds and pinpoint app cloners, emulators, tampered apps, and auto-clickers used by fraudsters on Buymed’s ecosystem. By profiling risk throughout the user session, SHIELD also detected when users showed signs of suspicious behavior, enabling Buymed to catch potential fraudsters red-handed. 

Nam Pham, Director of Engineering, said “SHIELD’s Device Intelligence delivered results right away - we now identify multi-accounting and flag suspicious activity in real-time with instant updates to our risk engine. With SHIELD adaptability, we’re able to eliminate the need for multiple third-party tools, empowering us to effectively combat a wide range of fraud.” 

When Prevention is Better than Cure

The fight against fraud is constantly evolving. To ensure Buymed stays ahead, SHIELD's Global Intelligence Network offers a continuously updating library of emerging fraud tactics. This enables Buymed to strengthen its fraud defenses while improving operational efficiency, reallocating time and resources towards expansion plans. 

SHIELD’s device-first risk AI platform empowers Buymed to proactively tackle fraud including fake listings, promo abuse, and inventory hoarding before it impacts users and their platform. By prioritizing customer experience and leveraging SHIELD’s capabilities, Buymed has set a benchmark in the industry as the most trusted healthcare e-commerce platform in Vietnam. 

“Protecting the healthcare ecosystem is a critical pillar for our growth. SHIELD provides Buymed with a crucial first line of defense against fraud, helping us ensure fair access to medical supplies while maintaining our platform’s integrity and trustworthiness without infringing on personal data. With SHIELD as our partner, we can confidently expand into new markets."