How To Prevent Internet Credit Card FraudThe Internet is one of the best inventions of man. After the end of the Cold War with the fall of the Soviet Union, the Pentagon let go of its monopoly over Internet. Soon the Internet became the hot favorite of the people all over the world. With it communication has become easy, fast and inexpensive. The Internet has opened up the world; it has helped the world to globalize. But like most of the other good things in life, the Internet has its disadvantages too. Like many other scientific invention, the Internet has fallen prey to wicked people who use it to serve their own means. One such instance is the cause and rise of Internet credit card fraud as revealed by current credit card fraud statistics. Any consumer who uses the Internet is at a security risk for his or her own privacy, and it is high time we learned to protect our transactions online. You can be a victim of offline or online credit card fraud whether you are an ordinary customer or an owner of a commercial website. In most of the cases these online commercial websites accepts credit cards as these ensure customer convenience, increased sales etc. Credit card fraud on the Internet is spreading like an epidemic, which has become major concern for both the merchants as well as the consumers. The credit card holders may find themselves with long bills charging them payment for transactions which they have not made. This is a common problem and it is not always the management of the credit card bank that is at fault. The culprit is somebody else and that is the credit card thief. It is the merchant's duty to check out properly whether the transaction is legitimate or not before fulfilling it. If a transaction turns out to be fraudulent, the merchant is likely to face a loss. In that way, detection is the responsibility of the merchant. It is for this purpose people should be careful against such occurrence. For safety purpose it is essential that AVS response code be given to that transaction. Ensure that you get an AVS code for each credit card transaction that you made on your website. This is a foolproof method to prevent credit card fraud. If you are wondering what exactly is AVS and what is its function then let me clarify that AVS stands for Address Verification Service. The job of this code is to give you information regarding the validity of the address given by the cardholder. There are three numbers in an AVS code the first pertaining to the street address, the second to the zip code and the third is an overall clarification of both. However, approval of a transaction does not necessarily end the process here. If a lot of money is involved then it is better that you carry on further investigation. It is better if you call up the client yourself and talk to him about the whole transaction. In case the telephone number does not match, think twice before shipping the order. But before embarking on such a mission you should be aware of the fact that in case the transaction turns out to be a shame you will have to pay the total purchase amount if the cardholder decides to chargeback. However, if you are unfortunate enough to fall into a trap then don't lose heart. There are still ways to recover merchandise or at least you can try to bring the culprit to the law. Your first step should be to report to the police. You should also contact the cardholder and convince him to report to the police. Take action fast, and always remember that prevention is always better than cure. Credit card fraud prevention is just not the duty of just the merchant. You need to be sensible and aware all of the time that there are people out their trying to defraud you. Read and follow the credit card usage guidelines given to you by the credit card issuer. You might also think of employing services like ScamBusters to protect you from online vulnerability. Just doing that will put you steps ahead of your credit card fraud protection efforts. |