Fraud Prevention Suggestion for Online Merchants
Last week I took delivery of a treadmill. Two young kids and a cold winter means that I can’t hit the roads for a while yet and sitting in front of a PC writing this blog whilst eating anything that comes my way is not helping my waistline.
When the guy delivered it I asked how his online sales were going. He said every order that comes in creates a headache and a whole load of worry. He has been scammed so many times with stolen credit cards and now he can smell a rat after asking the right questions. But he couldn’t get his head around why the Police were not interested even though he knew the transaction was fraudulent, he knew where it was going to be delivered so why didn’t someone just go with the delivery and arrest them.
If only it was that simple. Firstly the Police are no longer interested and would prefer to pass this over to the banks to deal with. Secondly the chances are that the person who signs for the goods has no idea what the scam is and the transaction will not be traced to them.
A third party robust manual check system is needed and I’m sure the merchants wouldn’t mind paying their bit. The credit card company needs to ring the cardholder, if the purchase is over a certain amount or if requested by the merchant.
If your products are only low value items you are already paying a high price and it’s likely that you are already paying plenty in merchant charges and allow for this shrinkage, however painful in your numbers.
I would love to hear of any other fraud prevention suggestions. We have posted an fraud prevention section on http://www.mcware.co.uk and http://www.hdforensics.co.uk can also help with anti fraud advice.
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