| Credit card fraud has become pervasive on the | | | | for e-commerce, orders from Ukraine, Indonesia, |
| Internet. According to MasterCard International, account | | | | Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Egypt, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, |
| takeover fraud has increased by 369% since 1995. It | | | | Russia and Pakistan have a very high incidence of |
| has become one of the fastest growing types of | | | | fraud, and often have unverifiable |
| fraud, and one of the more difficult to combat. More | | | | addresses.Untraceable email address. |
| than $700 million in online sales were lost to fraud in | | | | In many fraudulent orders, the customer's email |
| 2001, representing 1.14 percent of total annual online | | | | address is often at one of the free email services, like |
| sales of $61.8 billion, according to GartnerG2. Even if | | | | and yahoo.com, which are relatively |
| the credit card company has given the authorization | | | | untraceable.Expensive items. |
| as to the validity of the card, there are several ways | | | | Be wary of expensive orders, especially for |
| fraudulent cards can be used on your site. The card | | | | expensive brand-name items.Multiple items. |
| may have been lost or stolen, but the card owner is | | | | It can be a bad sign, for example, if someone orders |
| yet to report its loss. Or the number on the card (and | | | | three X-Box or three DVD players at once, especially |
| not the card itself) may have been lifted without the | | | | where the items have a high resale value.Express |
| knowledge of the owner. There is also a scam called | | | | shipping. |
| identity theft, where the card has been issued under | | | | Most fraudulent orders specify overnight or 1-day |
| false pretenses using someone else's identity and | | | | shipping without hesitation.Shipping address differs from |
| data.As an online merchant, you need to have a | | | | billing address. |
| system to check the authenticity of orders placed to | | | | Receiving point and billing address are different in |
| safeguard your business. While the effort may require | | | | fraud orders. If you are selling valuable items, it can be |
| additional time and money, it can save you the cost | | | | a good policy only to ship to the billing address of the |
| and stress caused by charge-backs for fraudulent | | | | card's holder.Suspicious billing address. |
| orders. You lost your physical products; you lose the | | | | The address looks too simple or invalid. If the billing |
| sale price; you lose another business opportunity; and | | | | address is 123 Main St, New York, the order is |
| you will be fined an additional $15-$50 charge-back fee. | | | | probably fraud. You can use or online location tool to |
| If you have a high percentage of charge-backs, your | | | | see if the address can be verified.Leave at door or |
| card services company can even blacklist you and | | | | post office box. |
| cancel your merchant account. You will also spend | | | | If the courier service cannot guarantee delivery of |
| time looking up the order and provide the requested | | | | goods, the risk of fraud is very high.The advancement |
| information to your card services company. All of | | | | of geo-targeting in the Internet allows us to pinpoint the |
| these hassles are things you can surely do | | | | geographical region for an order. The information can |
| without.How can you protect your business from credit | | | | be used to reduce the fraud by verifying it with the |
| card frauds? Here are a few steps that can be taken | | | | billing address and delivery address. This method can |
| to ensure that the transaction is being requested by | | | | identify the scenario where someone from country X |
| the real cardholder.Suspect shipping address. | | | | has stolen the credit card data from country Y. The IP |
| According to ClearCommerce Corporation, a provider | | | | address lookup service will reveal the real country |
| of payment processing and fraud protection software | | | | instead of relying on the country filled in the order form. |