By Paul Lang, http://sellitontheweb.com
How to Beat Credit Card Fraud
From all the media hype surrounding electronic commerce,
a newcomer could be forgiven for thinking that making money on the 'Net is easy.
Trust me, it's not. A successful Web merchant has to carefully select the product
or service they are going to sell, choose an e-commerce solution, and then build
their store. But that's just the start of it: they then have to promote their store
to encourage people to visit it and then convert these visitors in to purchasers
and then hopefully on in to repeat purchasers.
So whatever way you look at it, building an online business takes a lot of work.
Imagine then, how an online merchant feels when they see the profits from their hard
work being lost through credit card fraud!
There has been much discussion in the media about the impact of Internet credit card
fraud from a consumer perspective. This is somewhat surprising really as the incidence
of fraud perpetrated by online merchants against consumers is fairly rare and consumers
are typically only liable for the first $50 of any fraudulent transaction, and even
this liability is often waived by the credit card issuers.
In fact it is usually the merchant who is the true victim of Internet credit card
fraud. This is because Internet credit card transactions fall under the heading of
MOTO (Mail Order / Telephone Order) transactions, also called CNP (cardholder
not present transactions). Most credit card merchant account agreements leave the
merchant 100% liable for fraud committed via this type of transaction as well as
requiring them to pay a $15-$25 chargeback fee. And as if to rub salt in to the wound,
if a merchant experiences a high level of chargebacks they are often hit with an
increase in the discount rate they have to pay on each transaction or may even have
their account terminated. And once lost, a merchant account can be almost impossible
to obtain again.
So just how big a problem is Internet fraud? Global credit card fraud is estimated
at over a billion dollars per year, but with Internet transactions making up a tiny
percentage of all credit card transactions it is possible to come to the conclusion
that Internet credit card fraud is not really a big issue. This might help to explain
why banks and card issuers have in general been slow to try and fix the problem.
On the other hand, reports from individual merchants vary. Some claim they have had
no problems at all while others claim significant losses. Whatever today's reality
is, one thing is clear: the problem is only going to grow as Internet usage and e-
commerce continue their rapid expansion.
Indeed, the Internet itself makes the process of credit card fraud easier in many
ways. Lists of stolen credit card numbers and even programs to generate valid new
numbers are readily available online. And once armed with stolen or false credit
card information, the lack of face-to-face or voice contact on the Internet tends
to make a thief more brazen than ever.
It would be wise therefore for all online merchants who have not yet been the victim
of a fraud attempt to make the assumption that they will experience an attempt to
defraud them at some point soon.
It is important for merchants to understand that if they become victims of a fraud
they will probably receive very little support from the police authorities. The authorities
are likely to view the amount involved to be too small to bother about, or in the
case of international orders to be out with their jurisdiction. So it is therefore
vital for merchants to put in place fraud prevention processes now and not wait until
a fraud attempt occurs.
Before moving on to discuss fraud prevention techniques, one common misconception
needs to be cleared up. Some merchants make the assumption that the verification
process they initiate when they key a card number in to an electronic swipe terminal
provides sufficient fraud protection. This is not the case as all this verification
process does is to check that the card has not been reported stolen and that it has
sufficient free credit available to fund the purchase.
So why are existing anti-fraud techniques not sufficient? Current techniques for
credit card fraud prevention include the use of signatures on anti-tamper tape, holograms
and now even the etched image of a card's owner. These are all of no use when it
comes to CNP transactions, as the merchant never gets to see the credit card. About
the only existing anti-fraud technique that is of any use to the online merchant
is AVS - Address Verification Service.
AVS was developed to help MOTO merchants avoid fraud. It works by comparing a portion
of the billing address with the records held by the card issuer. However, AVS has
some serious limitations when it comes to Internet transactions:
- One of the major opportunities that the Internet brings
is the ability to accept orders from all around the world, but AVS only works for
addresses in the USA.
- Another major advantage of the Internet is that it allows
"soft" goods such as software to be purchased and downloaded instantly.
AVS provides no protection here as all a thief has to do is to obtain a valid address
that corresponds to a stolen credit card number.
- And even with "hard" goods there is still a problem as thieves can supply a valid address for a stolen credit card as the "bill to" but then request a different "ship to" address.
I mentioned above that the banks and card issuing authorities
were doing very little to combat online fraud. This is not strictly true as they
are investing large sums of money in to a new system known as SET. SET is
the Secure Electronic Transaction protocol developed by Visa and MasterCard specifically
for enabling secure credit card transactions on the Internet. It uses digital certificates
to validate the identities of all parties involved in a purchase and encrypts credit
card information before sending it across the Internet. However it is likely to be
several years (if ever) before the use of SET becomes widespread.
Not surprisingly then, merchants have been quick to develop and introduce a number
of ways to limit their exposure to fraud. Here's a list of some of them:
- Using AVS whenever possible: OK so it only works in the
US and the system can be beaten, but it's still a useful way of weeding out the less
sophisticated fraudster.
- Being particularly wary of orders from free e-mail addresses:
Once a thief has a stolen credit card number and a stolen address they need one more
thing to complete their fraud portfolio - an untraceable e-mail address to hide behind.
That's why a high proportion of fraudulent orders come from free e-mail addresses
and as a result many merchants refuse to accept orders from them or at least perform
additional checks. You can find a list of free e-mail domains on the AntiFraud Web
site at http://www.antifraud.com/redflag.htm.
- Checking out the customer's Web site: it is often possible to determine the URL of a customer's Web site by simply putting "www" in front of the second part of their e-mail address. For example, if a customer provides an e-mail address of "john.doe@somedomain.com" then typing www.somedomain.com in to a Web browser usually leads to their Web site.
Things to look out for include empty or "under construction"
Web sites or sites where the contact information differs significantly from the order
information. For example, the Web site might display a US business address whilst
the order requests delivery to be made to Eastern Europe.
Some merchants go even further and check out who owns the domain name. Information
on the ownership of US domains is available on the Network Solutions Web site at
http://www.networksolutions.com
or alternatively Unix wizards can use the "whois" command.
- Taking special care where the "ship to" address
differs from the "bill to" address: Some merchants don't accept these types
of orders from international customers and some carry out additional checks even
for domestic orders.
- Watching out for unusual orders: Thieves usually have the
"might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb" mentality and therefore tend
to place orders that differ significantly from what legitimate customers typically
order. Things to look out for include orders for "big ticket" items, orders
for unusually high quantities and orders where the customer is prepared to pay a
lot for expedited delivery.
- Phoning the customer if in any doubt: A quick telephone
call can often be enough to establish whether an order is legitimate or not.
- Collecting all possible order data: When trying to detect
fraudulent orders or trying to recover money lost through fraud, the more data you
have available the better. This includes the customer's address and telephone number,
the name of bank that issued the credit card, and the IP address of the computer
from which the order was placed.
- Firing a warning shot: Stating clearly on a Web site that the merchant has anti fraud safeguards in place and will pursue prosecution for all fraudulent orders can be enough to scare of some would-be thieves.
Although it might be tempting to employ all of the methods
above, there is a problem: each of these checks takes time (and therefore money)
to perform. The best strategy therefore for most merchants would be to construct
a tiered matrix that stipulates the level of checking that should be performed on
different order categories. The contents of such a matrix will depend entirely on
the nature of what the merchant is trying to sell and how much risk he or she is
willing to take, but here's an example:
Domestic Orders
Order value
Less than $25 - Accept all orders
$25 to $99 - AVS check only
$100 to $249 - As above + no orders from free e-mail addresses
More than $250 - As above + phone customer for confirmation
International Orders
Order value
Less than $25 - Ensure "bill to" address = "ship to" address
$25 to $99 - As above + no orders from free e-mail addresses
$100 to $249 - As above + check out customer's Web site
More than $250 - No credit card orders accepted
Although this approach will reduce the risk of fraud considerably, it still has some
problems associated with it. For not only do these checks take time and money to
perform, they also prevent the use of real-time credit card processing which could
in turn lead to lost sales. And most important of all, these methods are difficult
to scale successfully: a merchant might be able to perform these checks on a small
number of orders per day, but how would they cope when the number of orders grows?
One solution to this quandary is to employ some automated checking tools. There are
a number of these available, but for the purposes of this article I am going to focus
on two AntiFraud (www.antifraud.com)
and CyberSource IVS (www.cybersource.com/solutions/).
AntiFraud is by far the lower costing of these two products, but it has the
limited capability to match. It costs just under $10 per month and provides a number
of tools:
- Automatic screening of free, Web based or e-email forwarding
addresses. AntiFraud provides access to a custom script that automatically checks
the buyer's e-mail address against a list of "Red Flag" domains. The list
currently has over 2000+ domains listed, and it is updated regularly.
- IP tracking automatically captures the IP address of the
computer from which the order was placed
- Instant Fraud Attempt Alerts that allows members to notify
each other about fraud attempts
- A regular newsletter
At the other end of the scale, CyberSource's IVS
solution (including full payment processing capability) costs $1495 to set up and
has a per transaction fee of $0.39, with a monthly minimum of $195.
Cybersource claims that its IVS system has reduced fraud levels to just 0.5% of sales
for many of its merchants. IVS is based on an artificial intelligence engine and
works by analysing numerous characteristics of each transaction including shipping
address, network address and at what time of day or night the order was placed. IVS
then assigns weighted scores and compares these against a merchant's pre-defined
threshold to determine if a transaction should be declined or accepted.
My final message: Internet credit card fraud is growing and will continue to do so
and as things stand just now you, the merchant, are going to have to bear the cost
of it. So whatever anti-fraud methods you choose to employ, please start work on
implementing them today.
Copyright 1999, Netsavvy Communications. All
rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
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