Top Tips

Top tips on avoiding fraud and chargebacks

• Do not assume that all your customers are genuine. Although the majority of your online customers are genuine, it is easier for people to disguise their identity online than it is in the real world and it is necessary to carry out checks on online and mail order/telephone order transactions to make sure that the person ordering is the genuine cardholder.
• Review the fraud screening results in your VSP Admin reports. If a transaction has been flagged 'red' as high risk, carry out further checks.
• Review the results of the AVS and CV2 checks. If the checks returned any result other than an 'all data match', carry out further checks.
• Review Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode results. If your account has been set up with Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode and the customer was not fully authenticated, carry out further checks.
• Review the customer and order details to identify if there is anything unusual about the order. For example, if the customer orders more than once in a short space of time or if the customer has ordered an unusually high volume or value of goods.
• Confirm customer details are genuine by checking that the area code of the telephone number and the address match. You can also check that the e-mail address and telephone number given are valid by using them to communicate with your customer.
• Look at where the customer is ordering from. Check whether the IP address of the computer used to make the order is in a different location from the billing or delivery address. The IP address is displayed in your VSP Admin reports. International orders are often difficult to verify as fraud screening and the integrity of data varies from country to country. Be aware of orders that originate from countries which are known to be hotbeds for fraud such as: Nigeria, Indonesia, Bosnia and Egypt.
• Look at delivery specifications. Be wary if a customer requests next day delivery regardless of the additional costs, or changes delivery instructions at short notice.
• Use the deferred payment option so that you can check each order before you accept it and so that you can reject orders that do not pass your fraud checks, without incurring any bank charges.
• If you are not satisfied that the person ordering is genuine, cancel the order and do not ship the goods. Even if the order is a large order for your business, do not be afraid to reject it if you believe it is fraudulent. It will cost you more in the long run to accept a fraudulent order.