Flag Fraud to Your Merchant Account Provider

The last thing you want for your merchant account is to allow anyone to perpetrate fraud. Successful fraudulent transactions can lead to trouble for you and your provider, but if you can catch these transactions ahead of time you can help keep your business secure. When you do spot potentially fraudulent transactions, it is important to flag fraud to your merchant account provider right away and take any precautions you can, to prevent false transactions.

Tips for Online Merchant Accounts

Reporting a potentially fraudulent order to your merchant account provider can be as easy as making a phone call, but before you can spot fraud you need to know what to look for. When it comes to online transactions, here are a few tips to consider. If you find that any of these situations are present, you may want to flag the transfer for potential fraud.

• Make sure the customer enters complete and accurate information. This means that you should have a system in place to verify that: the address is valid and not a forwarding address, the phone number is in service, and any other essential information.
• Ensure that the customer enters his or her verification number accurately. If there are failed attempts at entering any information, including the verification code, expiration date, or billing address, you will need to flag fraud your merchant account provider.
• Look for conflicts in address. This could include an IP address that originates in a different country than the billing address, a billing address that does not match the country of the shipping address, or any other mismatched combination that might raise suspicion.

 

To speed up this process and make things even easier for you, consider creating a negative database that would look for common markets and known fraudulent activity. If any of this is spotted, you can have a report automatically submitted to your merchant account provider for review.

Tips for Retail Merchant Accounts

For retail business, you can usually catch attempts at fraud before you even process the payment, in which case you will not need to know to flag fraud to your merchant account provider. Despite this, here are some ideas to spot potential fraud in the retail environment. If one does slip by, you can still notify your merchant account provider of your suspicions so a more thorough investigation can be performed.

• Always check photo identification against the name on the credit card. If you fail to do this, you could be easily letting someone use a stolen card.
• Compare the signature on the credit card to the signature on the receipt. If they appear very different, you may want to collect more information.
• Watch out for decline cards. Pay special attention if a customer swipes one card that is declined and does not seem surprised. If he or she simply pulls out another card, pay special attention to all of the transaction details.

If you have any questions on other ways to prevent fraud and learn to flag fraud to your merchant account provider, please contact a representative at Transparent today.