Every day, hundreds of cases of credit card fraud and other forms of swindling activities take place on the internet.
Unlike the older forms of fraud, identity thieves do not really need to have your credit card at hand to make unauthorized transactions. They simply need to steal your credit card information to commit fraud against you.
Even online merchants are at a great risk to ID Theft. ID thieves can disguise themselves as buying customers using other’s people’s names and credit card numbers. You might think that you actually made a huge sale when in fact, it was a scammer who placed the order. Sooner or later, the online seller will find out that the goods will not be paid because it was an illegal transaction.
If you are an online merchant, how can you protect yourself from credit card fraud and identity theft? Here are some suggestions:
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Use a secured shopping cart.
Online retailers must make sure that they are using a safe and protected shopping cart software not just for their own protection but for their customers as well.
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Analyze customer orders.
Before processing an order, review all the information provided by the customer. Make sure that the personal information matches with the credit card details. To be sure, you may want to call the credit card company to verify the information.
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Watch out for suspicious orders.
Be wary of customers who want to use different credit cards to pay for a single purchase. Chances are, these cards have been stolen from different cardholders.
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Ask for the customer’s landline number.
One way to verify a customer’s identification is to ask them to provide a landline number on the order slip. Check their area code and see if it matches with the delivery address provided.
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Be wary about very large bulks of order.
ID Thieves want to take every possible opportunity to get more if they can get away with it. Be extra careful when a customer places a suspiciously large bulk of order, especially if this customer demands that the package be shipped in a hurry.
