Greg Pierce asked:




Online credit card fraud is a term used for the theft and illegal use of credit cards. It is a very rampant case all around the world today. In fact, the Government of the United States of America has lost $315 billion dollars last 2005 from credit card theft alone. And in the year 2006, nearly 22 million consumers fell victim to credit card fraud.

Phishing – This is a widely used method by criminals. This term refers to the distribution of fake emails by the criminal through the Internet. The email would usually let the victim fill-up a form with his personal details, including the name and PIN number of the credit card. In this manner, the criminal gets the information and uses it to purchase goods or any items.

Pharming – This technique has only been discovered recently. This is one of the most dangerous among the three. The process involves the tampering with the domain name resolution process on the Internet. By hijacking or corrupting a Domain Name System (DNS), a user types the URL of a website he wants to visit without the knowledge that he will be redirected to a fake site. Unaware with what is happening, the user may just type in his bank account or card details making them a victim of Pharming.

Skimming – This is another process which involves using a device to copy the encoding data of a credit card. The device is usually inserted to an ATM machine and used as a card reader. This process is not so common these days anymore.

Actions- If you suspect that you have been a victim of a credit card fraud or theft, it is very important that you take actions as soon as possible. The very first thing you need to do if your card has been stolen or is lost is to go to your card issuer and report what happened.

After you have reported the incident, if no result has been given to you by the credit card issuer it would be better if you would follow up the case through phone calls and letters. If you are to send the letter, it should contain the details of your case like the date the card went missing, the date you reported it as lost or fraud and other details about your card.

Being able to know the different tactics that scammers and thefts use to gain access to your credit cards is very important for you to be able to avoid from becoming a victim of this rising fraud often common in the internet.

Tyrone

Micah Waters asked:




Every year, fraudulent credit card purchases cost online retailers millions of dollars. Without the benefit of scrutinizing a customer and requesting additional identification in person, it can be more difficult to properly identify fraudulent charges made online. However, with a little extra time and effort, online merchants can significantly minimize their risk to fraud using the following strategies.

1. If the shipping address doesn’t match the billing address, call the customer directly to confirm the order, especially if the listed shipping address is out of the country.

2. Always require a valid phone number on orders and ensure the area code of the number matches that of the billing address. Consider calling the customer to confirm the number.

3. Be suspicious of atypical orders, such as unusually large orders or orders for an exceptionally high amount of the same item. If an order seems suspicious, conduct a little more research to determine whether or not the order is fraud.

4. Other transactions to be wary of include orders purchased using multiple credit cards but shipped to one address. Or multiple orders made with the same credit card within a short period of time.

5. Check the IP address of the customer placing the order to determine their location. Be wary of international payments that originate from “high-risk” countries or areas that are known for their high-rate of fraud, including Nigeria, Turkey, Lithuania, and Russia.

6. Scammers will often use untraceable email addresses originating from free web-based services. Ask the customer to provide an ISP or domain-based email address that can be traced to their location.

7. Use the Address Verification Service (provided by most payment processors) which ensures the information provided by a customer matches the information the bank that issued the card has. Many payment gateways also have a variety of other fraud prevention tools you can use to minimize your risk.

8. When in doubt, call the customer and request the customer fax a copy of the driver’s license or passport to authenticate their identity.

9. Make your anti-fraud policy clearly visible on your website and warn potential fraudsters that they will be pursued to the fullest extent of the law if the place fraudulent orders through your website.

10. You can also call the issuing bank prior to authorizing the order.

Darryl

Peter Kenny asked:




If you have ever shopped online, then you might know about some of the dangers associated with online purchasing and online credit card fraud. If you are not careful, you could end up being a victim of online fraud, which could leave you with a large bill to pay of items that you have not purchased. Here is some more information about the dangers of online credit card fraud and how to avoid them.

Why shop online?

If there are dangers to shopping online, then why do so many people do it? Well, the dangers of online fraud are only equal to those of any other type of transaction. Also, online shopping is often much cheaper and quicker than regular shopping, and consumers who want to find great deals without leaving their home are turning to online stores.

Use credit not debit

The first tip to help you avoid online fraud is to make sure you try and use a credit card to purchase goods rather than a debit card. This is because credit cards are much safer than debit cards and have far more security features. If someone were to get hold of your debit card details, you are unlikely to be protected. However, credit cards are usually covered by purchase protection, meaning that items you have not bought will be refunded to you.

Use HTTPS

When shopping online, it is important to make sure you only enter your card details over a secure connection. If you enter your details on a page that is not secured, it will be easy for fraudsters to get your details and use them to purchase items. To make sure the page is secure, check that the page address starts with https://. This means that the page is secure, and it is safe to use. If it does not start with this prefix, then do not enter your details.

Use trusted web sites

Although making sure the page is secure is important, you should try and make sure you only use tried and trusted web sites for purchasing online. Using small or unknown sites can lead to problems, whereas if you stick to large company sites that are used by many then you are more likely to stay safe. These large web sites have better security features in place, and are more likely to help you with any problems regarding unauthorised transactions.

Keep all details

If you make a purchase online, make sure that you print out all of the details of the order, such as the company name and address as well as an invoice number and the amount you have spent. If anything goes wrong then you will have some record of the transaction and be able to sort out the situation.

Computer protection

It is important to remember that as well as being safe online, you should make sure your computer itself is safe. The easiest way for a fraudster to get to your financial information is to hack into your computer. Make sure you have adequate anti-virus protection that is up-to-date and that you have firewall in place. This will help to stop fraudsters getting hold of your information, and keep your money safely where it belongs.

Carl

Peter Kenny asked:


If you have ever shopped online, then you might know about some of the dangers associated with online purchasing and online credit card fraud. If you are not careful, you could end up being a victim of online fraud, which could leave you with a large bill to pay of items that you have not purchased. Here is some more information about the dangers of online credit card fraud and how to avoid them.

Why shop online?

If there are dangers to shopping online, then why do so many people do it? Well, the dangers of online fraud are only equal to those of any other type of transaction. Also, online shopping is often much cheaper and quicker than regular shopping, and consumers who want to find great deals without leaving their home are turning to online stores.

Use credit not debit

The first tip to help you avoid online fraud is to make sure you try and use a credit card to purchase goods rather than a debit card. This is because credit cards are much safer than debit cards and have far more security features. If someone were to get hold of your debit card details, you are unlikely to be protected. However, credit cards are usually covered by purchase protection, meaning that items you have not bought will be refunded to you.

Use HTTPS

When shopping online, it is important to make sure you only enter your card details over a secure connection. If you enter your details on a page that is not secured, it will be easy for fraudsters to get your details and use them to purchase items. To make sure the page is secure, check that the page address starts with https://. This means that the page is secure, and it is safe to use. If it does not start with this prefix, then do not enter your details.

Use trusted web sites

Although making sure the page is secure is important, you should try and make sure you only use tried and trusted web sites for purchasing online. Using small or unknown sites can lead to problems, whereas if you stick to large company sites that are used by many then you are more likely to stay safe. These large web sites have better security features in place, and are more likely to help you with any problems regarding unauthorised transactions.

Keep all details

If you make a purchase online, make sure that you print out all of the details of the order, such as the company name and address as well as an invoice number and the amount you have spent. If anything goes wrong then you will have some record of the transaction and be able to sort out the situation.

Computer protection

It is important to remember that as well as being safe online, you should make sure your computer itself is safe. The easiest way for a fraudster to get to your financial information is to hack into your computer. Make sure you have adequate anti-virus protection that is up-to-date and that you have firewall in place. This will help to stop fraudsters getting hold of your information, and keep your money safely where it belongs.



JEREMY

Abhishek Agarwal asked:


Online credit cards have made its usage more convenient today.

Online credit cards are all about a single package of commerce and technology.

With the increase in use of the internet, communication barriers as well as knowledge barriers have been broken. With this came on the concept of virtual shopping or e-shopping that exists only on the net. You can shop at your convenience by making use of their online payment by using the credit card. Once they check on your payments of online credit cards, the things that you have purchased will land at your doorstep.

The usages of these are becoming more popular as e-shops are increasing. Using credit cards online is becoming more popular. A new look has been given to credit card shopping. Discounts are available on these products in addition to home shopping. There is no need to be bothered about traffic jams or weather or just about anything else. It’s very simple. All you have to do is go to one of the e-shops, choose ay product, use the online payment facility and then get your products home.

Starting an online business is just very simple with the advent of online processing of credit cards. However everything has its bad side. One of the downfalls of this is that there could be a possibility of a credit card fraud online. This can possibly happen only in two ways. One of the ways is that the company on whose website you made the payment itself can cheat you. They can just take in your payment and not delver the products to you at all. On top of that they can still get details of your card and cheat you. There is still another way in which you could be cheated. This is done by fraudsters who use different types of devices or software to get your details while you were filling it online for a credit card payment on any website. These online spies are known as fraudsters and spyware is the name given to the software they use for these purposes. Screen shots and keystrokes are taken of whatever is done on the compute by you and is then passed on to the spies. Spyware is that which does this. We also have anti spyware which can be used to prevent these spyware to act on you.

So with the coming of using online credit cards, it certainly has been a boon to us. It still is a must to exercise caution when making these online payments through your credit card. Unless and until you are extremely sure about credentials of the net café you are using, do not make any credit card payments or access your bank accounts.



TOMAS

Jessica Miller asked:


Credit Card fraud is one major worry for the booming online shopping portals, given a choice, 90% of online stores at some point of time would prefer a different mode of payment than a credit card, because in a Card-Not-Present scenario, an online merchant suffers the most if a fraudulent card is used by a shopper. 

But isn’t this mode of payment the most convenient of all other forms of payment, if only basic safe-guards are exercised by a merchant, a credit card is the most ideal and handy mode of payment than a money transfer, check or e-payment facility.

This article will shed some light on how best a merchant can organize and observe a few measures that will to a large extent prevent him from being conned, by fraudulent credit card transactions resulting in chargeback and revenue loss to his online business.

As a first step, sign-up for an online security service provider who can screen credit card transactions on a merchant website before forwarding it to payment gateways for processing the card, these service providers have access to updated databases through which it can be easily determined if a fraudulent credit card is being used.

Apart from the access to databases that have updated inputs on identity thefts, the Merchant Risk Management Service provider also check other parameters of the transaction that include,

IP address of the customer Global Address Validation Mapping the customers computer or device used for the transaction Match the proxy server through which the customer is logged in with the billing address entered for the transaction Generating an instant report for the transaction, and sending an alert to the merchant in case of fraudulent representation.

These preventive measures adopted by merchants, will to an extent eliminate online credit card fraud and increase the growth potential of e-commerce businesses.



KENNETH

sachin k asked:


someone has used my credit card details to do online purchase. guide me how do i handle the case

NATHANIEL