8 tips to help detect online fraud | |
Gareth Sales Friday, December 14, 2012 |
Hi everyone,
As you are fully aware, Christmas is a busy time for ecommerce store owners. Unfortunately it is also a busy time for online fraudsters using stolen credit cards. Online fraud can ruin ecommerce businesses and we have had several merchants who have been forced to close down their stores due to being hit hard by fraud.
Below are eight tips you can use to help detect fraudulent orders in your store.
- If the shipping address is outside the US but the billing address is in the US, this can be a red flag for fraud.
- Use IP address geolocation tools to find out where the order was placed. If you find that the order was placed from a computer in Africa, but the billing address is in the US and the delivery address is in Germany, investigate further.
- Look out for orders with expensive shipping costs - Fraudsters want the goods ASAP before the card is cancelled and will usually choose the fastest (and most expensive) shipping option. If the shipping cost is $80 for $50 worth of products, the order may be worth investigating.
- If you are ever in doubt about an order, send the customer an email, if they respond it's a good sign the order is genuine as fraudsters typically provide false email addresses.
- Use services such as whitepages.org or anywho.com to validate the accuracy of the address details provided.
- Fraud is more common in certain countries than others. Nigeria is the biggest threat and many ecommerce companies simply refuse to deliver to this country with no exceptions.
- Don’t assume that an inexpensive order isn’t fraud. Fraudsters know that large orders get flagged and will usually manke many smaller orders from different stores rather than one large order from a single store.
- Use the VP-ASP Fraud Alert Module to do all of the checking for you. It is the same powerful module we use on our own website and is highly effective at reducing online fraud.
Happy Selling!
Gareth
VP-ASP
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