Tips On How To Securely Accept Credit Card Payments

Tips On How To Securely Accept Credit Card Payments

While it is necessary to accept credit card payments to give your business the boost it needs, you need to be careful to secure your business against fraud. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners declare that almost half of the total number of small enterprises fall prey to fraud some time or the other, and the loss in revenue can be colossal. 

Tips On How To Securely Accept Credit Card Payments

What Happens If You Are Not Careful When You Accept Credit Card Payments?

If you are caught accepting fraudulent payments, you can be held accountable. Dealing with such transactions includes managing the chargeback process and salvaging the damage to your business credibility. None of this is easy or pleasant. So, it is best to take measures to prevent this from happening.

Fraud can be of two types, namely, account takeover and identity theft. In account takeover, perpetrators will hack into customer accounts that contain personal financial details such as purchase history. In the second type of fraud, hackers steal usernames, credit card details, passwords, and other confidential information relating to buyers from databases. 

Shopify guarantees a safe checkout through secure payment gateways

What Can Retailers Do To Stop Credit Card Frauds?

  • One of the most effective ways that retailers protect their stores from such fraud is to comply with PCI SSC or Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council norms. It is a conglomeration of globally-known brands like MasterCard, American Express, and Visa that has come up with some robust practices for protecting client confidential data. Complying with these norms is now mandatory for online retailers. If you want to accept credit card payments securely, you need to request your payment processor to help you achieve this PCI compliance.
  • While the risks of fraud may be high, it does not mean that you have to accept this as part of your expenses. In other words, you can always adopt the right processes and tools to reduce the chances of fraud. One of these measures is to monitor online transactions regularly and reconcile your bank accounts daily. It is achievable as you know the nature of your business better than anyone else. You know who your biggest spenders are and their purchase patterns. So, you can easily watch out for red flags like inconsistent billing. You may use tools for tracking buyer IP addresses so that you are alerted when the address belongs to countries that are infamous for fraudsters. You can also verify whether your clients use anonymous or free email ids because the risks of fraud are higher where free email services are involved.
  • You can also set limits for the number of purchases or the total value that you will accept from a specific account for a day. It is possible to assign these limits depending on your revenue trends over some time. This safeguard is very effective as it can minimize your exposure to fraud.
  • Using the AVS or Address Verification System is a good practice that can compare the billing address details on credit cards to addresses that are maintained by the credit card company. You must, however,  find out whether your payment processing company is offering this tool.
  • The CVV or Card Verification Code is a three or four-digit code that is printed for additional security at the back of your credit card. According to PCI norms, you cannot store this code with your name and card number, making the CVV useful in protecting your business when you must accept credit card payments.
  • Another useful tip to protect your online business from hackers is to make sure your customers use an alphanumeric password, containing letters in upper and lower cases, special characters, and numbers. While this may be tedious for customers, it is the best form of protection against hacking.
  • As an online retailer, you must make sure your software is updated. Software providers come out with the latest security patches to guard against some newly-found loopholes, malware, and viruses. So, you should keep updating your anti-spyware software. It is also worthwhile to pay for this software as the free ones have limited features and are incapable of preventing fraud.

Tips On How To Accept Credit Card Payments

Reasons To Choose Shopify To Avoid Online Credit Card Fraud:

When you choose Shopify, you can enjoy protection against online fraud. Its Fraud Protect feature protects your online orders for a nominal fee for each order. In case there is a fraud, and it leads to a chargeback, Shopify will reimburse the expenses. With Fraud Protect you will not have to review every order manually anymore. Businesses using this tool can process all their protected orders, without having to worry about their authenticity or wasting time on order-fulfillment.

Also, Shopify allows you to sell your products securely. All orders can be processed faster and delivered on time. The orders that are not protected are typically fraudulent, and you can either cancel it or fulfill it.

Shopify’s Fraud Protect filters orders to process only the genuine ones

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