Fraud: How to Protect Your Business

Fraud is an inevitable challenge you will face in your small business, but there are ways that you can avoid and reduce those risks from impacting you. Making sure you’re aware of what to do to keep your business safe is important! Let’s explore what fraud prevention measures you can take to protect your business.

Fraud Prevention Measures

Accept EMV Chip Card Technology

Upgrading your device(s) to the best available technology for validating credit and debit cards opens your business up to the opportunity of benefits EMV payment technology provides. Accepting EMV chip cards at your business will significantly reduce your risk for fraud and chargebacks. This technology doesn’t allow your card to be copied, therefore minimizing the risk of accepting fake cards. You get the perk of dual verification, which authenticates the person is the card owner and you can reduce financial liability. As of the Oct. 2015 liability shift, merchants that don’t support chip cards are financially responsible if any fraudulent transaction happens.

It’s becoming mandatory for more and more merchants to upgrade their current devices to meet the EMV standard. As a business owner, it's in your best interest to do so, especially considering the fact that the responsibility of chargebacks will fall back on you as the business owner, when you do not.  

Avoid and Handle Chargebacks Efficiently

Chargebacks are an inevitable hassle, but they don’t have to be a consistent one. These transaction reversals cause your business to lose money and can add up quickly while also being quite time-consuming to take care of. You want to make sure you resolve the accurate source of the chargeback since it isn’t always fraudulent.

As the merchant, you want all of the information about the transaction available from the bank to put together a credible case for representment. What that information will entail is strong evidence showing the transaction was legitimate along with documents to support this. These documents are reviewed by the processor who will determine the outcome.

While you can’t avoid chargebacks completely, you are able to take precautions to reduce the chance of fraud in your business.

Secure Online Credit Card Processing

Card-not-present transactions are an easier way for people to commit fraudulent orders, but luckily there are secure ways to facilitate payments online. 

A payment gateway allows merchants to accept credit card payments by facilitating a secure payment transaction through the transfer of information between a payment portal (think your website or mobile phone) and the front-end processor. Gateways are payment services that process credit cards online through an e-commerce site or in person through a credit card terminal.

Here are 5 tips to get you started: 

1. Use address verification (AVS) and card code verification (CCV) for all card-not-present sales (i.e., online and mail order sales).
2. Include a reminder on your Thank You page telling the purchaser to save their receipt and use it to reconcile their credit card statement. 
3. Email the customer a copy of the receipt that includes what was purchased, the expected shipping time, and the name of your company.
4. Notify the customer if there is going to be a shipping delay. If the order will take longer than usual to ship, give the customer the option of waiting or canceling their order and refunding their money.
5. Be on the lookout for suspicious sales such as unusually large orders without any contact from the customer, rush orders for large quantities or high-priced goods or orders that are shipped to a different address than the billing address. 

Become PCI Compliant or Upholding Your Status

When your business is PCI compliant, you’re doing what you can to protect your customers’ payment details and your business from fraudulent activity. PCI compliance determines how you will store, handle and transmit cardholder data, so it’s important to meet that most important payment standard. If you don’t meet those PCI compliance guidelines, you can face non-compliant fees. With TransNational Payments, we are a compliant payment processor and will provide you with tools to help you remain compliant as well.

Conclusion

It’s impossible for you to prevent each and every fraudulent transaction simply from being aware of what the warning signs are, especially if you accept online payments. But you can significantly reduce those unwanted transactions from happening by having effective fraud prevention methods, staying alert and keeping yourself informed.

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