It has been over a year since AIS Media introduced its merchant services division.

Growth in Internet activity is exploding! Sales levels over the next few years are expected to approach hundreds of billions of dollars. Underscoring this growth is the ease with which merchants can establish web sites on the Internet. Such ease of access provides merchants with tremendous opportunities to grow their businesses. Many new Internet merchants are perfect targets for Internet Fraudsters. Without help in identifying possible fraud schemes new Internet merchants may become victims of sophisticated Internet criminals.

To help merchants minimize their Internet risk, Visa worked with industry experts, banks, and Internet merchants to identify characteristics which, when more than one is present in a transaction may indicate potential fraud.

Merchant banks encourage their merchants to verify all suspicious orders, for example, that huge order from an unknown customer that was shipped to a distant international address. Additional cardholder verification could prevent banks and merchants from being victimized by Internet fraud.

Visa recommends that merchants with businesses on the Internet follow these best practice guidelines to reduce their fraud exposure.

Take caution with Internet transactions with several of these characteristics:

• Larger than normal orders that maximize purchases on time-limited stolen or bogus payment card accounts.
• Orders consisting of multiples of the same item or big-ticket items.
• Orders shipped rush or overnight.
• Orders from Internet addresses using free e-mail services that do not require a billing relationship or verification that an account was opened by a legitimate cardholder.
• Orders shipped to an international address.

Develop and maintain customer databases to track buying patterns and identify changes in buying behavior such as:

• Transactions charged to similar account numbers fake account numbers tend to be sequential.
• Orders shipped to a single address but made on multiple cards.
• Multiple transactions charged to one card over a very short period.
• Multiple transactions on one card or similar cards with a single billing address but multiple shipping addresses.
• Multiple cards used from a single IP address.

Leverage Visa's current risk management tools:

• Use the Visa Address Verification Service during authorizations to verify the cardholder's identity and billing address.
• Require additional customer information to make it more difficult for buyers to hide their real identities.
• Confirm suspicious orders separately before shipping to minimize merchant risk exposure.

In closing, if you take just a few additional steps to reduce fraud you will dramatically reduce your chargebacks which will save you time, money and headaches. You can also focus your time one activities that actually generate sales such as marketing!

It is our goal to continue to update our merchants on changes and implementations that may affect the way you use your merchant account and processing solution. Please contact us if you would like to offer feedback or need a few questions answered.

Easy Steps For Merchants To Minimize Internet Fraud