Big Ideas for Small Business

I got an email today from a client running a MIVA Merchant store at http://www.petitepluspatterns.com. She is an independent pattern designer living in BC, Canada. She got two orders she suspected of being fraudulent. Both orders were placed using free web-based email accounts (yahoo and gmail). Most people I know use these free email accounts these days, so simply disallowing orders from free email providers is not proof enough of fraud.

Here’s some tips for identifying and avoiding fraudulent orders:

1. Don’t accept a credit card order is unless complete information is provided including full address and phone numbers.
2. Don’t accept any order originating from a free, web-based email address. The customer must provide an ISP or domain based address. One that can be traced back to a “real” person. Since the list of free email addresses is growing, check every email address by going to a browser and putting a www. in front of the domain. Don’t accept orders unless the email/domain is a legitimate website or ISP — something that can provide definitive identification of the email address in question.
3. Call the phone number listed on the order. Many cardholders find that their card information was being used without their knowledge by making this phone call. On the other hand, the party on the other end may have never heard of the “customer.” This results in a call to the issuing bank of the credit card to alert their fraud department.

If you’d like to report criminal cyber activity, you may do so with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at http://www.ic3.gov/. This government website offers information about how to protect yourself against internet fraud, spoof email and common crime schemes.