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