| As the growth of the internet has exploded, so has | | | | each other |
| thenumber of attempts to exploit the powerful medium. | | | | 7. US billing address, foreign shipping address |
| In this day and age, evensmall websites have to worry | | | | 8. Email address from a free account provider (Yahoo, |
| about protecting themselves from fraud. What | | | | Hotmail, Gmail, etc) |
| aresome ways that the small business owner can | | | | Implement IP Address Blocking: Most credit card |
| protect their e-commerce websitefrom these | | | | processors provideyou with the ability to block certain |
| fraudsters? The following article will suggest some | | | | IP address from visitors who repeatedlyare attempting |
| easy preventativeactions that can thwart online fraud. | | | | credit card transactions. If the transaction meets |
| | | | certaincriteria, you can have the visitor redirected to an |
| 1. Review Every Order: Although it may be very | | | | error page that containsthe info for your customer |
| tedious, the benefits of reviewing every order are | | | | service. |
| many. In many cases, simply spending 10 seconds | | | | Watch for Email Bounces: Most websites automatically |
| looking at an order will catch many obvious cons. For | | | | send emails tocustomers once an order has been |
| example, if the first name is something like "fasdfsdf" | | | | submitted. Since many fraudsters use invalidemail |
| than you probably don't have a legitimate order. Many | | | | addresses, its important to monitor which orders come |
| fraudsters are simply testing credit cards and have no | | | | back with aninvalid email bounce. |
| intention of actually receiving merchandise. However, if | | | | It's important to take the above suggestions with a |
| not reviewed, orders like this can accidentally be | | | | grain of salt. While allof these ideas will be helpful, you |
| shipped and the merchandise will be lost. | | | | can't take any single one in isolation oryou might flag a |
| 2. Watch for Obvious Signs: The following are | | | | legitimate order as fraud. Usually a fraudulent order |
| common signs of fraud: | | | | willmanifest many of the above signs, not just one. The |
| 3. Order contains large quantities of the same item | | | | website owner must alwayslive by the ethic that its |
| 4. Order contains most expensive products available | | | | better to flag a fraudulent order as legitimaterather |
| (they don't are about the price when its not their | | | | than flagging a legitimate order as fraud. |
| money) | | | | While online fraud will never be fully prevented, there |
| 5. Overnight shipping (fraudsters want to receive the | | | | are many ways tomitigate it. Hopefully, the above |
| order before the credit card is reported stolen) | | | | ideas will help you filter out these annoyingcriminals as |
| 6. Billing and Shipping name and address different from | | | | much as possible. |