CFS peaks in the mid 40’s and then drops off, 2 while the prevalence of FM increases monotonically over the decades, peaking at the 55–64 age range. The peak age at which each syndrome occurs is not the same, however. Of 313 patients diagnosed with CFS at our CFS Cooperative Research Center through 2003, 76% were women and 34% had co-morbid FM. In contrast to FM which has no exclusionary diagnostic criteria, CFS should not be diagnosed unless medical and psychiatric causes of fatigue have been ruled out thus, the prevalence of FM is ∼10-fold higher than that of CFS (3 1 vs. Customers can also easily switch out of the system at any point and talk to an agent - although most are more than happy to complete the entire transaction through the automated system.Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and fibromyalgia (FM) are medically unexplained illnesses, predominantly of women, characterized by disabling fatigue and by widespread pain with tenderness, respectively. CFS also worked with Adeptra on the script, quickly informing customers who the call was from and what it was concerning, so customers could be assured that it was not a spoof call.

Prior to launch, CFS conducted considerable customer communications to increase awareness of the solution, including messages on statements, information on the website and internal communications. Ultimately CFS is providing superior customer service through the increased peace of mind that it is adopting the most sophisticated and timely solutions to keep its customers' money safe.' Lou Venezia, CEO of Adeptra commented: 'With recent APACS research suggesting that UK fraud losses on debit and credit cards increased by 14% in 2008, smart organisations like CFS are turning to Auto-resolution to intervene immediately to greatly reduce the time gap between the suspected activity and the customer being informed.' He added: 'Working with Adeptra, CFS is tackling this rising tide without the financial and time considerations associated with employing a significant amount of extra resource. As Adeptra delivers its Auto-resolution system in a hosted environment avoiding the complex issues of integration and testing, the project was delivered with minimum disruption to CFS' existing business, reducing internal costs and allowing CFS to maintain only a small project support team.

The project has delivered unprecedented payback and, partly thanks to CFS' proactive customer communications and bond with its customers, the self-service solution has been well received.

Martin Kent, MI and analysis manager at CFS Financial Crime Management commented: 'We could see card fraud increasing in line with the industry-wide rise of 14%, and recognised that we needed to become more efficient in dealing with fraud, and to reduce our exposure through an automated solution.' He continued: 'Adeptra was the obvious choice due to its impressive track record, integration ability and its domain expertise in fraud - and card fraud in particular.' Loss per case has fallen by 50%, largely because the system is getting to fraud cases quicker, and call centre operators are able to concentrate on the high-risk calls that they are trained for and find more satisfying. Using Adeptra Auto-resolution to contact customers to verify suspected cases of fraud, CFS now makes around 12,000 calls every month, most of which are new calls that fraud analysts were unable to make previously. Since implementation, CFS has reported a 35% reduction in fraud.

Cfs coop