Fraud Prevention Tools & Tips for Online Businesses

Fraud detection should be top of mind for every business, but particularly for those selling online. Start protecting your ecommerce business today with the following easy-to-implement fraud prevention tools and tips.

Use Extra Caution with Online Transactions
Customers love doing business online because it’s hard to beat the convenience. But for merchants, online sales present certain risks. When buyers pay online or over the phone, the physical credit card is not present for the transaction, hence the name card-not-present (CNP) transactions. CNP fraud is highly prevalent, costing merchants billions each year.

​A smart way to prevent CNP fraud on your website is to require customers to input their card verification value (CVV) number for all online, over-the-phone, and mail order purchases. The CVV is the 3- or 4-digit number usually on the back of the credit card. Additionally, request that customers enter the card’s billing zip code when making their purchases to lessen the occurrence of fraud.
 
Avoid Friendly Fraud
Friendly fraud, also known as chargeback fraud, occurs when your customers don’t recognize your business’s name on their credit card statements and initiate a chargeback. Be sure your business’s name is clearly represented and recognizable on customer’s statements.
 
Communicate with Customers to Deter Fraud
When corresponding with customers about their orders, include your company’s name and logo, as well as listing the item(s) purchased, the quantity, and price to remind them what they purchased and the total paid, which reduces the chance of them forgetting a purchase and initiating a chargeback.
It’s also critical to notify your customers if there is a shipping delay that impacts their order. If their items won’t arrive within the original timeframe, give your customers options to see if they’d rather wait for their order, or cancel it and receive a refund. For cancellations, it’s better to refund the money and keep a customer happy to ensure repeat business than to ship goods to a person who may not be there to receive their items and request a chargeback.
 
Employ CAPTCHA on Your Website
CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. The name may sound strange, but it’s a simple challenge test—such as a remedial math problem or typing in an obscured word—used to determine if a customer on your website is a human as opposed to a scamming robot. Adding a CAPTCHA test to your website or online store is simple.

Take Advantage of Easy-to-Use Fraud Prevention Tools
E-commerce businesses taking advantage of solutions like Authorize.net and its Advanced Fraud Detection Suite (AFDS) are way ahead when it comes to outsmarting fraudsters. The fraud detection tools designed to help identify suspicious activity and filter out the good transactions from the problematic, including:

Reduced Chargeback Fees & Overall Costs
Minimize and prevent authorization and chargeback fees as well as possible inventory loss resulting from fraudulent transactions Card Testing Prevention. Detect and block malicious card testing attacks to reduce financial losses from fraudulent purchases.

Protection of Hard-Earned Profits
By maximizing legitimate transactions, you’ll have a better defense against potential fraud
Flexible Security Flags & Filters. Set filters based on Transaction Amount & Frequency, Country, and/or IP Address to restrict the likelihood of bogus transactions. Per-Transaction Notifications
View up-to-the-minute details on every transaction, initiate authorization holds, and decline flagged transactions. 
Shipping Address Verification 
Identify potential fraud by comparing the shipping address to the origin of the IP address placing the order. With such security protocols in place, your business can approve, deny, and even isolate certain transactions based on preset filters. Specific, detailed features within the AFDS allow you to initiate authorization holds and shipping address verifications, while declining flagged transactions.

​To learn more about how these solutions can help your online business operate in a more secure way, contact us at 727-748-4181.