Fraud Prevention Archives

How I detect ecommerce fraud

November 17, 2014 • Erica Tevis

I read an article the other day that said online fraud is at its highest during the Black Friday to Cyber Monday timeframe. It’s no wonder: That is the busiest ...

Fraud Prevention

Apple Fingerprint Scanner May Boost Mobile Commerce

September 9, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Next generation smartphones or tablets equipped with fingerprint scanners may provide shoppers with greater security and boost both online and in-store mobile commerce. Leading mobile device makers Apple and Samsung are ...

Fraud Prevention

What to Do When Your Site Gets Hacked

August 7, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Hackers attack sites of all sizes, from massive enterprises to small, family-run online retailers. When an attack occurs, there are steps any business owner can take to stop the attack, get things cleaned up, and get back to doing business. Having your site hacked is a painful, emotion...

Fraud Prevention

Cyber Security for Ecommerce

July 15, 2013 • Marcia Kaplan

Anyone using the Internet should be aware of security issues. But companies that engage in financial transactions and collect customer data need to be especially careful. While much of the emphasis for ecommerce merchants is the protection of credit card information, in the age of big d...

Fraud Prevention

Using Big Data to Prevent Ecommerce Fraud

May 22, 2013 • Gagan Mehra

A recent report estimated the fraud cost for online retailers to be $3.5 billion or 0.9 percent of online revenue. To put it in different words, an online retailer loses, on average, $9,000 to fraud for every $1 million in revenue. This is a significant amount of fraud that, ideally, ...

Fraud Prevention

3 Tips for Managing a Store’s Online Reputation

March 6, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce marketers can monitor and maintain their stores' online reputation with regular searches and alerts, social media tracking software, and a commitment to good customer service. Reputation management, which is the practice of listening to and responding to what people say about...

Fraud Prevention

Beware of DDoS Attacks on Ecommerce Sites

December 6, 2011 • Armando Roggio

With the holiday shopping season in full swing, some Internet security experts are worried that ecommerce sites may be especially vulnerable to distributed denial of service attacks from hackers, thieves, or even unscrupulous competitors. A distributed denial of service — DDoS — attac...

Fraud Prevention

3 Types of ‘Return Fraud’ to Monitor this Holiday Season

November 14, 2011 • Armando Roggio

Return fraud, which is expected to cost brick-and-mortar retailers $3.48 billion this holiday season, could also snag online merchants — significantly increasing costs and chargebacks. Return fraud takes several forms but three stand out as real concerns for ecommerce. They are: (1) wa...

Fraud Prevention > Merchant Voice

How to Detect Online Fraud

March 22, 2011 • Jamie Salvatori

Every online retailer will, at some point, be faced with fraud. It is as inevitable as taxes, but far more sinister! Your credit card processor is going to give you two pieces of information to help combat fraud: the 3 or 4-digit “security code” and an AVS response. The CSC code shoul...

Fraud Prevention

Radical Ideas to Make Credit Card Payments More Secure

March 1, 2011 • Armando Roggio

Credit cards approvals are not completely secure because the information those approvals rely on — cardholder names, card numbers and expiration dates — is static and relatively easy to gather. Focusing on making payment approvals less vulnerable may be more effective than asking cons...

Fraud Prevention

Ask an Expert: How to Expedite Credit Card Fraud Detection

May 11, 2010 • PEC Staff

"Ask an Expert" is an occasional feature where we ask ecommerce experts questions from online merchants. For this installment, we address a question about credit card fraud detection. It comes from Jamie Salvatori, the founder and owner of an online novelty gift store called Vat19. F...

Fraud Prevention

The PEC Review: CRE Secure Eases PCI Concerns

April 5, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Protecting customer credit card data and then telling customers that you're doing so should be a top priority for online retailers this year. First, protecting your customers' data is an ethical responsibility. If you're selling products online and accepting credit card data, you shoul...

Fraud Prevention

The Technical Side of PCI DSS

February 9, 2010 • Armando Roggio

What merchants don't know about the technical side of protecting customer data can be costly. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) describes 12 system and procedural requirements for securing customer credit card data that is transmitted, processed, or stored by a...

Fraud Prevention

The PeC Review: VeriSign Badge and EV SSL Instill Trust

January 11, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Customers want to feel safe when they make online purchases. They need to know that the credit card or account data they are providing to the merchant is transmitted and handled in a secure way. To protect customer information, an online merchant will comply with the Payment Card Indus...

Fraud Prevention

The PeC Review: Filtrbox for Reputation Management

December 11, 2009 • Armando Roggio

An increasingly social Internet has transformed Facebooking moms, tweeting trend-followers, and Digging teens into powerful brand and product influencers. And as your ecommerce business grows, you should be concerned about what these social Internet influencers are saying regarding yo...

Fraud Prevention

Ecommerce Know-How: Be Ready to Go Beyond PCI DSS Compliance

June 15, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Although ecommerce fraud incidents as related to sales are at historically low rates, online retailers (particularly small ones) should be concerned about credit card information theft and transaction fraud even beyond the familiar Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS...

Fraud Prevention

The PeC Review: Yahoo! Alerts Can Send You Text Messages

April 10, 2009 • Armando Roggio

While there are many online tools that can help ecommerce proprietors keep track of their businesses' reputations and reviews, Yahoo! Alerts, a free notification service, is one of the few that can send those alerts as text messages to a mobile phone, or via Yahoo! Messenger, as a stand...

Fraud Prevention

The PeC Review: Google Alerts Helps With Reputation Management

March 30, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Google Alerts is a free service that sends users an email or RSS alert when the search engine indexes new material related to a specific keyword phrase. Although the service is still described as a beta, it has been available for years and many a savvy businessperson has used the servi...

Fraud Prevention

Ecommerce Know-How: Avoiding Chargebacks and Improving Business

December 9, 2008 • Armando Roggio

Chargebacks are frustrating and expensive assaults on a retailer's bottom line. But practical and smart merchants can learn from some chargebacks, improving their stores' performance, customer satisfaction, and operational excellence. When a consumer asks his or her credit card company...

Fraud Prevention

New PCI Compliance Standards Take Effect

November 13, 2008 • Armando Roggio

The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council recently released a new version of its Data Security Standard (DSS), making minor but important changes and clarifications to the PCI compliance standard that responsible online merchants follow to protect their customers and av...

Fraud Prevention

Many Effective Tools to Detect Stolen Credit Cards, Part 3 of 3

May 5, 2008 • Jennifer D. Meacham

This is the third and final installment in a series outlining and explaining tools to identify and prevent credit card fraud. Previously, we discussed different methods of verification and geographic order tracking. Here are a few more methods you can use to combat fraud. Fraud scoring...

Fraud Prevention

Effective Tools to Detect Stolen Credit Cards, Part 2 Of 3

May 5, 2008 • Jennifer D. Meacham

Many online merchants are already on board with fraud-detection technology. To fill in the gaps, here is part two of a comprehensive list of fraud detection strategies. Previously we discussed authorization and address and credit card verification. Here are five more ways to catch fraud...

Fraud Prevention

Effective Tools to Detect Stolen Credit Cards, Part 1 Of 3

April 30, 2008 • Jennifer D. Meacham

There are hundreds of branded tools that ecommerce merchants can turn to for help in catching fraudulent credit card orders. Some tools are free, and some come bundled or offered as additional features in payment processing systems like Authorize.net and Google Checkout. Others can be s...

Fraud Prevention

Interview: Authorize.Net President On Fraud Prevention

April 23, 2008 • PEC Staff

Authorize.Net, a CyberSource Solution, is a leading payment gateway company with many years experience in combating credit card fraud. We asked Roy Banks, President of Authorize.Net, about common errors that merchants make with fraud prevention. PeC: What's the biggest fraud-prevention...

Fraud Prevention

Credit Card Fraud: How Big Is The Problem?

April 23, 2008 • Jennifer D. Meacham

Reports of website data breaches, identity theft and credit card fraud are increasingly in the news. But is the problem as widespread as the coverage suggests? Anyone who collects payments or customer information online runs the risk of being targeted by thieves. However, the likeliho...

Fraud Prevention

Field Test: Fraud Prevention, Part 3 of 3

March 31, 2008 • PEC Staff

In Field Test, Practical eCommerce gathered ten seasoned ecommerce merchants and asked each of them the same questions around a given topic. This month’s topic is fraud prevention. The participating ecommerce merchants are: Dave Norris, House of Antique Hardware; Chris Stump, Only Hamm...

Fraud Prevention

Field Test: Fraud Prevention, Part 2 of 3

March 24, 2008 • PEC Staff

In Field Test, Practical eCommerce gathered ten seasoned ecommerce merchants and asked each of them the same questions around a given topic. This month’s topic is fraud prevention. The participating ecommerce merchants are: Dave Norris, House of Antique Hardware; Chris Stump, Only Hamm...

Fraud Prevention

Field Test: Fraud Prevention, Part 1 of 3

March 19, 2008 • PEC Staff

In Field Test, Practical eCommerce gathered ten seasoned ecommerce merchants and asked each of them the same questions around a given topic. This month’s topic is fraud prevention. The participating ecommerce merchants are: Dave Norris, House of Antique Hardware; Justin Hertz, MuttMart...

Fraud Prevention

Interview: The Future Of Credit Card Fraud

October 29, 2007 • PEC Staff

The risk of credit card fraud and identity theft remain important issues for many potential ecommerce consumers. Practical eCommerce asked John Munsell, founder and CEO of Bizzuka, a web design and development firm, his views on the evolution of online fraud. PeC: The risk of a stole...

Fraud Prevention

Click Fraud Not Top PPC Concern

June 27, 2007 • PEC Staff

Click fraud has been a popular topic of discussion for a number of years, and it doesn’t appear the issue will fade away anytime soon. The industry is full of various numbers thrown around putting the click fraud rate anywhere from .02 percent (claimed by Google) to 30 percent or more. ...