This month, love is in the air, which means, unfortunately, so is credit card fraud. It’s no surprise that during peak consumer purchasing events such as Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Christmas, the rise in consumer online purchasing attracts an increase in CNP (Card Not Present) fraud transactions and data security breaches. Without proper safeguards in place, these fraudulent transactions, which can encompass a wide variety of goods such as electronics, jewelry and clothing, can go undetected, while the goods are shipped and then resold through private channels, auction sites, or classified ads.
Cyber criminals are also upping the sophistication ante by the using tactics such as keeping the Average Ticket Volume (ATV) or purchasing amount to under $219, or fraudulently purchasing a staggering amount of gift cards to resell, or use to purchase goods. According to the 2016 Nilson Report, a global news source offering statistics in the payments industry, credit card fraud losses for 2016 were estimated at $24.71 billion, a 12 percent increase over figures from the year previous. Additionally, the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicated in a past report that 86 percent of victims of identity theft reported that fraud had also occurred in connection with an existing credit card or bank account they possessed.
Safeguard your customers and their data by taking inventory of your security and fraud precautions and reviewing these helpful tips:
Don’t get Ship-wrecked: Avoid shipping goods to any address that cannot be verified by an address verification service (AVS). If a customer is using multiple cards to purchase but shipping to one address, be alert — this could be fraud.
Ask to hear those three little digits: For CNP transactions, fraudsters very often will not have the three digit card security code found on the signature panel (often referred to as the CVV, CVC or CID code) of the credit card. To avoid the use of compromised or fraudulent cards, request the code and verify it through the customer service division for the card issuer/bank.
Finding the perfect security partner: Detecting fraud is challenging. Choose a partner that can effectively help you combat fraud and has a proven track record of protecting businesses and its customers. ProPay®, a TSYS® company, offers a variety of solutions to combat fraud, including the Guardian CyberShieldSM powered by ThreatMetrix®. This product helps fight fraud for businesses by streamlining the screening for legitimate returning customers while identifying both online fraudsters and devices, by using trust-based authentication and utilizing data and analytics from ThreatMetrix Global Trust Intelligence Network, a repository for real-time transactional data. This Network protects more than 160 million active user accounts, oversees more than 500 million monthly transactions and protects more than 10,000 websites. Additionally this product helps businesses:
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Examine a user’s online behavior for risk assessment and profiles desktops, smart phones, websites, laptops and tablets to identify high risk transactions;
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Provides a customizable best practice policy engine to configure business rules, processes and benchmarks in order to determine risk
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Provides automatic alerts to fraud threats as they happen across the country and the world
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Detects multiple identities on a single device during website transactions to thwart spoofed identities.
This Valentine’s Day, while customers are shopping online to purchase gifts to profess their love to that special someone, take the necessary precautions to ensure that cyber criminals don’t seduce your customers’ customer credit card information.
For more information call 844.896.3209, email sales@propay.com or visit www.propay.com.