Credit Card Fraud

[alasdair]

Just thought I would post a general warning about the credit card fraud that we have been experiencing. It may be that others have been subjected to a similar fraud or will be in the future. We went live with a sunglasses store in the last few days. Unfortunately right from the start the orders coming in were all from fraudsters. We had 14 orders for sunglasses all from the same computer (IP address) but nearly all using a different credit card, name, address and email. The security code was correct but the address did not match.

Fortunately we spotted that 2 of the orders were from the same address and then investigated further. When we phoned the numbers the same foreigner picked up the phone. We ended up sending 5 of the orders and I presume that we will shortly find out from the bank that the credit details have been stolen and the bank will claim the money back.

[jont]

Welcome to the forum .... and the world of e-commerce fraud

[fleetwood]

Sorry to hear about your problems so early on, although now you are wise, you'll find it that much easier to spot future ones (you develop a smell for them!).
One word of warning - chargebacks can take a long time to surface - when we were hit in our early days it took 6 months for the chargebacks to come through.
There is a ton of advice out there - try typing "credit card fraud" or similar into google, and pick out the best advice

Martin

[Ghome1971]

I don't know how you process your orders. We input security number and card holders registered address which is a good check if the delivery address is the same.

Also sometimes the email address can give a clue - sometimes it may be a free generated address or doesn't relate to the card holders name etc. Sometimes orders look odd as if they have just ordered anything or have ordered lots of an item that generally doesn't sell well etc etc.

I usually call the customer if I have a suspicion. If the telephone number is not even valid or the persons denies ordering then I do not take payment or send the goods.

Good luck

Geraldine

www.stardustkids.co.uk

[chris ashdown]

If you are using Protx then after a few hours the address is checked and given a pass or fail, when you check the transactions,

your psp may have a simular system.

If in doubt phone them and try to suss them out

[fleetwood]

Unfortunately, most AVS do not cover overseas addresses.
As for trying to call an overseas customer to verify - err, not all of them speak perfect English!
Overseas orders carry the greatest risk - you either choose UK only, or accept the risk
As has been stated many times before, the banks as as unhelpful as they can be

[Big_Dave]

I use Worldpay to process my payments and accept payments from the UK and limited foreign countries (as recommended by Worldpay).

The problem I have is that Worldpay will warn of fraudulent looking transactions, but process them anyway and leave the decision up to me.

I tend to cancel the payment if everything is not in order (name, address, security code, etc). More often than not it is a genuine customer who has not entered their correct details. This is the safest option for me though as a genuine customer can always reorder with the correct details.

I state in my Terms & Conditions that I automatically cancel incorrect/fraudulent looking orders. The genuine customers always contact me and query the cancellation.

I have few of these though, and it would probably be better to contact the customer and advise them why the payment has been cancelled. I just don't always get the time to do this.

This system has worked for me for the last 18 months.

[phoenixfirework]

Delivery address

We have had about 5 recent fraudulent sales, one even kept on ringing up to see when his products would be delivered, until we said we had declined the card. Nearly all sales had mobile phone numbers and hotmail type email addresses with a different delivery address than the invoice address.

How can you stop the alternate delivery address being diplayed in Actinic? this would help in the first case.

[leehack]

It may help reduce fraudsters, but limit your real customers? if your fraudulent transactions are more than your real ones, i could understand the removal. Don't punish the masses because of a few fraudsters.

Having seen over 2,000 transactions go through an actinic store, the fraud ones are very easy to spot and to date (expect to be shot down for sure one day) not one fraudulent transaction has gone through.

If anything doesn't match, then ring a big alarm bell in your head and proceed with caution. Give them one chance to correct what they have wrong, if they fail, forget about them. That sifting out will be far less limiting for your real customers.

[phoenixfirework]

Asking for a landline should sort our the wheat from the chaff

Thanks for the info and the quick reply. Makes a lot of sence.

I think it would be best to ask for a landline instead of a mobile (or as well as). Which template can I edit in the ordering process to ask for a landline number when they enter their phone number?

Thanks

[leehack]

Do you mean if they are forced to put in a home phone number the fraudsters might not try? I can't imagine that working to be honest. If someone is prepared to use a fraudulent card, i fail to see how that will change anything. A BS phone number is probably the least crime of all and very easy to just put anything in there. You can never run a filter saying is his phone number attached to that address in the BT phone directory, so i wouldn't bother personally.

Separate delivery addresses, hotmail email, ringing up chasing the order (always 1471 these people) and incorrect card details, will sift out 99% of any problems. The other 1% is down to experience, instinct and a large slice of luck.

IMO all of this of course.

PS - mobile numbers are a lifeline if you need to contact customers during the day.

[jools]

If you have a look on the Worldpay website (www.worldpay.co.uk) they have a section dedicated to combatting fraudulent purchases.
The section gives some good advice as well as websites where you can do some further checks on customers such as address and postcode matches and that the telephone number matches with the address.
And as someone mentioned earlier Worldpay will advise which countries not to sell to such as most African countries as they are well known for fraudulent credit card activity. I sell worldwide but not to the countries renowned for fraud. Hasn't done me any harm and so far in 3 years had only one chargeback (fingers crossed!!).
Good luck on this one cos it's one that won't go away, doesn't seem to be preventable and changes quicker than we can keep up with it. I think if these fraudsters turned their minds to legitimate businesses we might see a few more biz millionaires out there!!
Julie
www.toys-to-you.co.uk
Eco-friendly, ethical, fair trade educational toys at high street prices

[runningwolf]

One of things I found with Worldpay was that once they had accepted the payment, when I then cancelled it I still had to pay the transaction fee's.
That prompted blocking certain countries, we have still had 2 get through that, one put his whole address in line 1 including Morocco, then selected France in country. Another did a similar thing with Australia as the country, when checked further it turned out to be Indonesia. Both were quite large orders so incurred significant charges for us.
We now use ProTx with Deferred payments, as far as I can tell we dont incur any costs unless we make a repeat payment (I hope I am not wrong).
I did have an odd comment from a Protx guy when we were getting it all working that implied that this method was going to be dropped in the new year, so I do hope I missunderstood that as this method works really well for us.

Cheers
Paul
www.theorderofinitiative.co.uk

[Duncan Allan]

Fortunately we can spot suss orders as they have a style about them and it's something you get a nose for.

I'd rather not specify giveaways to scammers in an open forum but there are traits that will identify obvious hoaxes.

Whilst I understand that generic addresses like yahoo and hotmail are common pointers as are mobile phones genuine customers do this too. They hide their main email address to protect their root addresses.

Mobiles phones well some people have them glued to their ears! And some people don't have landlines either.

As I use Protx after 24 hours the 3rd man screen is returned and you can get an idea from that.

However whilst everyone is susceptible to a scam it really depends on the products you are selling. Some things are more desirable than others and you may have to look at a more sophisticated paid for screening service.


Duncan

[jxm28788]

You could also try early-warning.org