Written By:
Lauren Reams
Merchant Account and Compliancy Specialist
Fraud is inevitable. There is no way to fully avoid fraud in the online direct response space. There is a way to protect yourself from walking blindly into multiple fraudulent charges. It is important that when you are running live transactions you should always have a fraud prevention filter or program in place in order to stop fraud but also to not block good sales. There are different options that are presented for online and in store protection. Chargeback Guardian has a fraud detection filter option that allows you to decide which filters are best to use for your business. You can block, filter, flag, or even track each transaction that fits a certain description. iSpyFraud is also a widely used online fraud detection tool. They also can customize their fraud technology to fit the needs and parameters of your business. There are many fraud prevention companies that you can partner with in order to have clean and safe transactions.
There are also tips that you can use to help build stronger and safer credit card transactions. Here are a few ideas:
- Make sure that the customer really exists and authentic.
- Use a filter program such as Address Verification System-AVS to make sure that the customer’s address is correct.
- Check to see if both billing and shipping address are correct, especially if the shipping address is different.
- Have your customer service team call customers to verify orders.
- Keep record of any contact you may have about the product or transactions with customers.
- Keep your loyal customers happy.
These simple tasks can help to reduce chargebacks, eliminate losses in your fulfillment, protect customers, and most of all to keep the customers safe and coming back to your site.
Just like fraud, chargebacks are going to happen not matter what. There are different times of fraud; ‘friendly fraud’ or ‘malicious fraud.’ It is important to be able to see the different elements of each and understanding that both can incredibly effect your business. Respond to chargebacks in a timely matter.
Fraud is not the first thing you think of when starting up an online business, but it’s a combination of a great product, brand, customer service, added value plans, design, and also fraud prevention that helps to make your business truly profitable and dependable.
