Fraud advice please

[stopfordian]

My website only allows one address to be input during checkout so, in effect, it is the same invoice and delivery address. However, I only have PayPal as my payment method - so I cannot check the address used on PayPal.

Today, I have received an order for a small amount (just over a fiver).
The address given was Liverpool. The phone number given was area code Burnley.
The Email address was invalid (...@hotmail.com) but the first bit (i.e. the persons name) matched the persons name on the order. The payment notification from PayPal came from the same person with @yahoo.com. This address is valid.
I cannot find the person on the usual people finders (e.g. 192.com).
The IP address points to Liverpool.

My first reaction was that it was a fraudulent order. Then, I start to ponder...
- Maybe they typed hotmail.com instead of yahoo.com by mistake.
- As I cannot find them on an electoral roll yet, they may be young enough to have just missed out on the last roll call (and it was a 'Miss ...' who ordered).
- Maybe they can only be contacted via their parents (or someone) in Burnley.
- The IP address location matches, so it could be okay.

Are there other checks I could be doing to help the fight against fraud?
If I rang the number, what could I ask to verify?

I hope I'm not being too naive here but this is my first order which looks suspicious and I wondered what the best way of dealing with it was.

Your thoughts are most welcome.

[wjcampbe]

Decide how much time and effort the profit part of the order value is worth and act accordingly.
If you don't supply and the order is genuine - you face a second charge from paypal when you refund. If you do supply and its fraudulent, you face a second charge from paypal when they take the refund.

[Stereo Steve]

Fraudulent paypal orders usually get flagged by paypal in a couple days so you could hold off dispatch and see if you get an email.

[Duncan Rounding]

As Bill says you must way up the risk worth vs the profit.
But if in any doubt then call and email the customer (to both addresses) to check details and see what they say - if you get no reply or are still doubtful then refund and don't ship.

...If you don't supply and the order is genuine - you face a second charge from paypal when you refund...

I'm not sure about this, I have refunded through Paypal (full and partial) and so long as it's within 60 days then the apportionate charge has been refunded too. Thankfully to date I've never had a Paypal chargeback though so can't comment on that.

[Duncan Allan]

Set Paypal to only accept payment from account holders only so that they have partly been pre qualified by Paypal themselves.

This will stop non account holders from ordering unless they have their account set up though.

Duncan

[Duncan Rounding]

Set Paypal to only accept payment from account holders only so that they have partly been pre qualified by Paypal themselves.

This will stop non account holders from ordering unless they have their account set up though.

Duncan

You can of course do this if you suspect a lot of your orders to be fraudulent, but in your case as it's your only method of payment doing so (as Duncan rightly says) might exclude many c/card paying customers who do not wish to open a Paypal account. People who have Paypal accounts like to use them, those who don't generally don't like to open them just to pay for a one off purchase.

Why not consider adding Nochex on your site as well - at least Nochex will give you more customer information than Paypal and for low order values it may be worthwhile.

[Duncan Allan]

NoChex is a good alternative although IME customers have commented that they objected to them having to pay [NoChex] to pay me! I think it's .99p per transaction. So whilst it's good for us not having a fee to pay the customer is put off by the up front charge.
People are strange like that when a charge is made plain they complain hide the charge and it's OK!

I used to have them as a default option but was so little used and adverse comments about the charge that I stopped using them. But in any case these are fallback options and you should be looking at a proper payment gateway, e.g. Protx who on balance are perhaps the lowest cost assuming you can get a merchant account.

Duncan

[Duncan Rounding]

NoChex is a good alternative although IME customers have commented that they objected to them having to pay...

I don't think this is the case any more. I've made test purchases and never seen extra charges as a buyer. I've also never had complaints about extra charges on my sites.

I think they're much more competitive now than they used to be. Not nearly as good an image as the likes of Protx etc, but for sites with lower turnover and smallish value sales Nochex is a good alternative.

[Duncan Allan]

Thank you for updating me.

Perhaps NoChex have been forced to make this change. There are other reasons why I don't bother with NoChex as I find them so difficult to deal with.

Duncan

[stopfordian]

Thanks for all your comments - much appreciated.

I rang the buyer who lived in Liverpool but worked in Burnley, knew what the order was for, and quoted the working Email address when asked for it. Whether I was prepared to send the goods or not didn't matter in the end, because right at the end of the conversation, she asked to cancel anyway.

The good news is that PayPal also refund the full fee if you refund the full amount. They refund partial fees on partial refund amounts.

As for NoChex, I had considered this when I started out on my store, but decided against it based on comments from other people. Maybe it has improved so I will certainly take a second look at it.