02.02.09
iPay88: Alert on Risky Countries
Below is an official announcement from iPay88 to the merchants. It warns the merchants to take extra precaution of the order coming from a particular high risk countries.
Dear iPay88 Merchant,
You are advised NOT to accept any orders from the following high risk countries to avoid charge-back later due to fraudulent credit card transaction:
- Indonesia
- Philippines
- Great Britain, particularly the Greater London area
- Netherlands, particularly Amsterdam (Hakfort)
- Romania
- Bulgaria
- Lithuania
- Kazakhstan
- Ukraine
- Balkan states (former Yugoslavia)
- Ivory Coast
- Nigeria
- Ghana
- Egypt
Besides, the customer’s behavior could help uncover fraudulent intentions beforehand, so you should be on the lookout for the following warning signs:
- A customer wants to pay the item using several credit cards (i.e. more than 2 cards).
( Our comment: Unless it’s huge sum that exceeds the limit of the cards, people don’t normally pay for an order using multiple cards. You don’t do that during the supermarket checkout and you normally would not do that online too. )- Same credit card number used by several name, email address or contact numbers.
( Our comment: Merchants are never allowed to keep the 16 digits credit card number, unless, if you are Amazon or Dell. However, merchant can see the first 6 digits and last 4 digits of the transacted Visa / Master card in the iPay88 admin. You will hardly see any 2 cards that coincidentally have the same first 6 digits and the last 4 digits number, this alone should raise an alert for extra checking.)- Have a record to use “Pick Up Card” or “Stolen Card”.
( Our comment: As we last check, “Pick up card = Stolen Card”, please don’t ask us which genius came out with the jargon “pick up card”, can’t they use some name which is easy to understand and straightforward? )- A new visitor to your online store and immediately buy from you in just a few seconds.
( Our comment: To track this you need a shopping cart that track the time an anonymous client first visit your site until it checkout from your cart. )- A first time customer buys from you in large quantity / amount.
( Our comment: So you are not dell or amazon and why would they trust you with such a large purchase? Double check on it!)- The customer immediately starts discussing problems, such as “If the card doesn’t work, I’ll send you my wife’s credit card number”.
( Our comment: This one should sounds an alarm as my wife never allowed me to touch her credit cards. )- Orders from your non-targeted market (i.e. You are targeting Malaysia market only but suddenly receive order from other country)
( Our comment: It’s only normal that you get International orders (come on, this is the Internet!), it means you are on the right track on your marketing! But don’t be too excited, cross border trade is tricky and it’s hard to determine whether the clients are genuine or not. Always be more careful until you find a pattern of your client buying behaviour.)Please always verify your customer before any product / service delivery. If you have any doubt whatsoever about an order, do not carry it out; alternatively, you can contact our Fraud Control Unit at +6(03) 9200 5555 (ext: 245) for further assistance. Important: the issuance of an approval code does not automatically guarantee you payment.
Important: the issuance of an approval code does not automatically guarantee you payment.
As you can see, “Cross border” trade is more risky. I think you can understand the notion of not doing business with Nigeria (this guy beg to differ), but London also on the list? There’s gotta be a better way.
This is where Neowave’s Fraud Alert System comes handy. Safest sign of orders normally follow below simplified formula [ (billing address = shipping address ) Near To IP Address Range and NOT From (Free Email or Open Proxy)].
However, nothing is 100% Fraud Proof. But Fraud Alert System gives you better illustrated information for you to make a better decision that significantly reduce your risk exposed.
The bottomline is, if you ever in any doubt, call the clients (landlines) !
