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Monday
November 17, 2008 Fraud Protection TipsFiled under: Tips and Tricks We received a few calls from members last week that someone was trying to purchase multiple DVD players with a credit card and they wanted them shipped overnight. Are your scam senses tingling? A few bells should go off when you hear that an order is for high end technology products with street value that don’t need to be imprinted and they need it overnight. Protection from fraud starts with you. You should know your own customers better than anyone. You can’t rely on your bank or the credit card companies to catch the scam. Authorization of the credit card means that the holder has sufficient credit, the card has not been reported stolen and that there has been no fraud activity reported to date. The card number that was submitted to you could be fraudulent but hasn’t been reported stolen yet. Unfortunately, banks that issue the cards won’t cover the cost of the scam. Using Visa and Mastercard rules, you, the merchant, will be charged back for the sale amount and will bear the cost of the lost goods. As the merchant, you are the first line of defense. We asked for advice from Dave Dauer at the Access Group, ASI’s affiliate for credit card processing, for the signs of possible fraud when the card is not present. Be alert for transactions that show several of the following characteristics. Keep in mind that none of these by itself means you are being scammed, but a combination of them might. - Request to charge the purchase amount on multiple credit cards If you suspect fraud, CALL the customer. Confirm the information that you have received and make sure you get the card verification number and the card’s billing address from the customer. As a part of your authorization process, you should always be requesting the card verification number which is the 3 digits on the back of the Visa or MasterCard. Failure to receive or failure to “Match” is an indication that they may not have the card physically in their presence. In addition, you should be completing address verification during the authorization process. Verifying the “bill to” address that you received against what Visa or MasterCard has on file for that card holder is a very important step and a strong indicator of possible fraudulent activity if the address information does not match. Never ship to a billing address that does not match the card holder address. Report any suspicious activity to your merchant bank. If the order is from a new customer, you can purchase an Experian QuickCheck report online to verify your customer’s information and check their credit. Protecting your business comes down to knowing your customer and using your instincts. For more information on credit card processing, contact ASI’s affiliate, Access Group at 800.809.0719. |
