Credit card fraud prevention is one of the most important factors you need to consider when accepting credit cards online.

Credit card fraud is increasing year by year and that's why we take special care to minimize your exposure to fraud risk. First line of protection is the large database of recorded incidents through the last decade which are used by us and involved banks. All our direct merchant account solutions are based on well established gateway with a full time team of people in the background monitoring possible fraud on all accounts. Thus in many cases we are able to warn you ahead and, most importantly, we give you a choice to process or decline/refund a possible fraudalent transaction. Risk team of specialists on our main EU merchant account solution has a decade long experience in monitoring internet fraud and crime, additionally giving you full assistance in all dispute/chargeback requests and do everything we can to solve each case in your favor.

Security standards used by our merchant account solutions:

CVV2:

This is a standard feature in all e-commerce transactions today, it requires to enter an additional 3-digit or 4-digit number printed on the credit card. For example it will prevent corrupt merchant to simply capture the magnetic stripe details of a card and use them later for "card not present" purchases over the phone, mail order or internet. Initials stand for The Card Security Code (CSC), sometimes called Card Verification Value (CVV or CV2), Card Verification Value Code (CVVC), Card Verification Code (CVC), Verification Code (V-Code or V Code), or Card Code Verification (CCV).

PCI security standards also dictates that the merchant can store all credit card details except the CVV number, which must be confirmed by the cardholder before and with each charge. CVV number can only be stored by a fully PCI compliant gateway such as the one used by our clients; this comes into practice for example with recurring monthly rebills.

With ccNetPay merchant account solutions CVV is typically not mandatory.


AVS (Address Verification System):

The system will check the billing address of the credit card provided by the user with the address on file at the credit card company. AVS verifies the numeric portions of a cardholder's billing address. For example, if your address is 101 Main Street, Highland, CA 92346, AVS will check 101 and 92346. Sometimes AVS checks additional digits such as an apartment number, other times it does not. However today only few countries support AVS on Visa and MasterCard, notably the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom. American Express does support AVS in more countries. In Europe AVS is not used, we also need to stress that AVS match does not guarantee anything, however a non-match means that something is clearly wrong with the card transactions and further checks on cardholder should be made.

With ccNetPay solutions AVS is optional.


3D Secure:

3D Secure is an XML-based protocol used as an added layer of security for online credit and debit card transactions. It was developed by Visa to improve the security of internet payments and offered to customers as the Verified by Visa service. Services based on the protocol have also been adopted by MasterCard, under the name MasterCard SecureCode. 3D Secure adds another authentication step for online payments. During a checkout process cardholder is redirected to a credit card company website where he/she enters the special personal passcode or enrolls into 3D to obtain the passcode first. Most important aspect of 3D Secure is the liability shift from the merchant to the issuing bank, meaning the merchant is no longer liable and are protected for some of the most common chargeback reasons. Thus merchants are encouraged to use this system although it may cause perheaps less transactions due to possible confusion of cardholders which are not yet familiar with 3D.

Our clients have the full flexibility with 3D Secure. Transactions can either pass through 3D, or be accepted as non-3D, with a choice how to process failed 3D transactions, all based on your preference.

For more info please see 3D Secure Basics, Pros & Cons

Why is Fraud Prevention so Important?

Imagine the following scenarios: You have received a payment from your online store and now you have to ship your product to the customer. What is the risk that the card is stolen and not yet flagged, or that the customer disputes the charge after you have shipped the package? You have started your online business and you already have a high volume of transactions, nothing looks suspicious so far. What will you do if organised criminals have used stolen cards to boost your sales? You are running a successful online webshop, the competition is tough and one of the competitors wants to push you out of the market. He is making fake orders and you have shipped all of them. Now he is disputing all charges and you are getting massive chargebacks. What can you do once this has happened? In all above scenarios good Risk Monitoring service is essential, warning you ahead.

Couple of facts you need to be aware of:

• Any bank will allow maximum chargeback ratios of 1.00% (MC) or 2.00% (Visa)
• More than 2 consecutive months above the allowed chargeback ratio means the bank will most likely terminate your merchant account and put you in the database of terminated merchants, decreasing your chances of getting a merchant account in future.
• The gateway provider or the PSP will charge additional fees for each chargeback.