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4 Ways to Prevent Credit Card Fraud at Your Business

Tag: Credit Cards

4 Ways to Prevent Credit Card Fraud at Your Business
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

4 Ways to Prevent Credit Card Fraud at Your Business

It is true that online businesses have made life easy for most people all over the world, as long as they have a laptop, tablet or smartphone. Shopping for clothes, grocery, jewelry and even insurance has become a piece of cake! You can buy things to your heart’s content from the comfort of your home or your office or you can place an order even on the go. Digitization has also helped online merchants to connect with more customers than ever, and they now have a chance to expand their businesses and earn more in an easier manner.

The biggest concern for e-stores

But like everything in life, e-stores have a major weakness. And that is, they are highly susceptible to credit card frauds. Besides hacking and phishing, account takeover and identity thefts are other frauds you might face from time to time, as an online merchant. Fraudsters might steal personal and financial information of customers, or steal usernames and passwords to make unauthorized purchases. Frauds are especially harmful for small businesses and hence it is essential that you follow these tips to prevent them:

  • PCI compliant payment gateway – To protect customer data against online frauds, the PCI SSC or Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council has come up with a set of best practices. And this is mandatory for online businesses to follow. So, it makes sense to use a payment gateway like PayTabs that is PCI compliant and has a double-layered fraud prevention system.

 

  • Keep an eye on transactions – As a merchant, you surely have an idea about the buying patterns of different customers. You know those who buy expensive products or buy in bulk. So, monitor transactions and your accounts daily to watch out for suspicious shipping information or inconsistent billing addresses. Tools for tracking IP addresses can also help, as they will alert you in case any address is originating from a fraud-prone area or country. Also note that frauds generate more from free email addresses than paid ones.

 

  • Use AVS and ask for CVV – AVS or Address Verification System is used by many online merchants to compare the customer address on a credit card company’s file with the numerical part of the address on the actual credit card. Use a payment gateway that does this checking automatically for you. The CVV on the other hand is the 3 or 4 digit security code that you will find on the back of credit cards. Now, if you are wondering why asking for the CVV is effective every time, it is because as per PCI rules, CVV cannot be stored with card owner name or credit card number. So, unless a fraudster steals a credit card, they cannot get hold of the CVV. Payment processors like PayTabs always include a tool that asks the shopper for the CVV number while checking out.
  • Use only the latest software and platforms – Providers of operating systems constantly update the software with security measures that prevent attacks from malware, viruses and frauds. So make sure you run only the latest operating system. Also install and update anti-spyware and anti-malware software from time to time, to prevent fraud attacks. These security software products should be business grade and not free ones with limited features.

Besides the above measures, try setting limits in terms of dollar value or the number of purchases you will accept from the same account per day. This can minimize your losses in case of fraud. Also, make sure your customers provide a strong alphanumeric password which is at least 8-charcater long and contains a special character or a capital to be extra safe. Inform your customers that long and complex passwords are necessary to prevent hacking. Otherwise, hackers can run programs that will run through all possible permutations of a password and crack it.

A little discretion and care can help you keep your online business safe from frauds. This will not only prevent monetary losses but also protect your reputation in the industry.

6 years ago
5 Tips to Protect Your Business When Dealing With Payments
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

5 Tips to Protect Your Business When Dealing With Payments

Most of the credit card frauds that took place earlier were related to “card-present” cases. These days with adequate security procedures like EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) chips to make transactions secure, something sinister is happening.

A new type of card fraud is emerging with “card-not-present” type of transactions. In such type of card payments, you are not physically swiping the card, but are using it on online platforms to perform E-Commerce transactions.

In order to deal with such type of card or identity theft, users are requested to get back to their credit card provider or the issuing bank for the reversal of the fraudulent charges. In the normal E-Commerce environment, where a buyer and a seller are involved, merchant is held liable for any fraudulent charges and they are supposed to reverse these charges.

These days, a new type of e-Commerce environment is emerging, where different buyers and merchants come together on a single platform. In this case, the platform-merchant relationship decides as to who is to be held responsible for frauds.

Recently, a trend is emerging where a swindler masks as a merchant and then they manipulate the platform to commit fraud before disappearing from it. In such cases also, the platform is held responsible for the fraud.

Now we’ll discuss what a platform owner can do to protect itself and its buyers against such frauds. Here are 5 tips to prevent such incidents and minimize the losses due to fraudulent cases.

Educate yourself on credit card fraud
There is no fixed modus operandi for credit card and other types of payment frauds because they are constantly evolving. Criminals in cyberspace use innovative techniques and latest technology to commit such acts. So what is recommended today may not be relevant in the future.

Constantly update yourself and keep on exploring newest fraud tactics. Employ latest technology and find the best ways to deal with the current threats efficiently. There are different types of frauds prevalent in the online marketplace today and these include buyer identity fraud, merchant identity fraud and merchant credit risk. Scammers can mask themselves as legitimate buyers and sometimes merchants as well.

Implement simple protection
To start with, employ the proven tools and techniques to avert fraud. For example, user data should be validated first with database companies like Equifax, Lexis-Nexis and Experian. You can also perform a history and credit check about the user, so as to make sure that he is a legitimate buyer or seller.

Do some social data mining
Entering into advanced fraud protection measures, social data verification can supplement our efforts to protect customers from fraud. We can perform data-mining from platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. We can pull these social insights to validate user identity through them. Scammers can create fake social media IDs, but it doesn’t take much to find if it is their regular ID or if it is designed in a hurry in order to commit a fraud.

Use your instincts
If something sounds too good to be true, stay away from it. If someone offers a deal that they are going to pay for the project in advance and it sounds too good to be true, there is high probability that it can be fraudulent.

Don’t do dilly dallying
Frauds are inconsistent and unpredictable in nature. Sometimes, frauds do not take place for a long time and suddenly you observe a surge in fraudulent activities. So, regularly monitor these activities with the help of latest tools even if no fraudulent activity is detected on your platform. Always stay alert as fraudulent activities can come as surprise and hamper normal business activities. They can also affect your profits and employee morale negatively.

6 years ago
The State of Global Payments: Part 2
Mohab Super Merchants 0

The State of Global Payments: Part 2

In one of our earlier posts, we touched upon the upsurge in non-cash transactions across the world and how developing countries are driving the growth of online/digital payments. We looked at some hard numbers from Capgemini’s World Payments Report which justified the growth in non-cash transactions across the world.

In this piece, we will look at key trends that are key to driving global payments in 2017 and the future:

  1. Technology vis-à-vis International E-Commerce: It is indeed true that international transactions have increased in recent times but the subsequent pace of developing fast, secure, transparent and efficient solutions have not quite been there. Currently, there’s a need for more payments solution to cater to the growth in international e-commerce.

 

  1. Need for Agility and Pace: Whilst the growth in FinTech investments over the years, there is currently a tremendous hunger in the marketplace, for companies to deliver more instant gratification moments in terms of payments and flexibilities in payments solutions. Which means different types of payments solutions accepting multiple currencies.

 

  1. Enterprise Payments: As per the World Bank’s Cost of Sending Remittances report, checks are still prevalent in most organizations across the world, especially smaller organizations. As of 2015, 90% of small organizations across the world, used checks for making payments, primarily to freelancers and commission based sales force. Large banks and credit card technology companies still dominate the international payments space, which is plagued by complexities and very high fees. There’s a huge scope for new age payments solutions providers to solve some pressing international payments issue in the B2B space.

 

  1. The case of the Unbanked: According to a Citibank report in March 2016, there are still 2.8 billion unbanked and underbanked people in the world, especially in developing countries, where FinTech solutions have outpaced the penetration of legacy banking. The key to the growth of FinTech and Payments solutions has been because of the huge growth in mobile payments, aided by the tremendous penetration of mobile in developing countries.

 

  1. Banks and Technology need to be friends: Banks need to accept and recognize the fact that digital payments can do much more than automation. Digital and online payments solution providers shouldn’t view banks as their adversaries, rather recognize the value that they are adding to the global financial system, thereby cultivating opportunities for greater innovation and efficiency through collaboration.

 

  1. Transparency: There’s been a paradigm shift in the needs of the global payments market, in the context of more transparent pricing, flexibility in integrations and innovative customer service. It is an imperative for global payments solution providers to track all transactions in the entire payment process/cycle to ensure transparency.

 

Therefore, as you can probably gauge that despite growth in FinTech and digital payments, there remains a lot of opportunities/gaps in the marketplace that needs to be fulfilled/filled.

We would love to hear your viewpoints in the comments below and click here to experience a new economy payments solution that truly manages to fill existing gaps and adds tremendous value for your business.

Click here to read State of Global Payments: Part 1

7 years ago
PCI-DSS: Does it sound Greek to you?
Mohab Ecommerce 0

PCI-DSS: Does it sound Greek to you?

Ever seen the green logo at the bottom of the checkout page for an e-commerce site? The PCI-DSS logo. You must have wondered what does the logo signify? Well, it is a mark of authentic security verification for the site and all the payment gateways associated with the particular site.

PCI-DSS stands for Payment Cards Industry- Data Security Standard. It is a worldwide industry body which verifies the security measures in place with regards to a payment gateway, an e-commerce site and banks as well. The certification and compliance measures are executed through globally approved scanning vendors of PCI-DSS.

One such vendor goes by the name of SISA, which recently audited PayTabs’ India office and ensured that operations in the particular office meets their security standards. SISA is a vendor which operates across the globe for PCI-DSS.

The PCI-DSS certification & compliance helps instill confidence among the uconsumer to provide their card details to the site or the payment gateway, because the card data is SSL encrypted or TLS 1.2 encrypted, thereby ensuring maximum security for the consumer’s card data.

The basic parameter of a PCI-DSS audit is to check for devices within the organization which has the potential to store, process and transact card data. No card data should be stored openly in any of the devices in an organization. All data should be in encrypted format. The CVV of a particular card should not be stored under any circumstances.

Last but not the least, the PCI council which consists of leading payments solutions providers such as MasterCard, Visa, Amex, JCB, RuPay and Dicover.

As a customer, whenever you are using your card details or bank details on any site or payment gateway, it is imperative for you to check for PCI-DSS certification/data encryption denotion.

To gain more insight on the security imperative for payment gateways, click here.

You can now subscribe to our blog alerts and stay at the top of trends and knowledge in the context of e-commerce and payments. Moreover, if you are interested in experiencing the completely secure PayTabs payment solution, sign up for a free demo!

Please feel free to leave us a comment or a query below.

 

7 years ago