Online Fraud Prevention: a guide with information and tips on how merchants can reduce the risk of fraud

1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic by 0 people | Log in to rate

Ranked #21,032 in Business, #261,629 overall

how to lose a million dollars!

Unfortunately there's no shortage of people around the world who will steal from you in any number of ways if given the opportunity. Anyone conducting online transactions runs a risk of being defrauded. This lens highlights a downloadable PDF that shows you specific things you can look out for and steps you can take to minimize your risk.

Steal the full article as a PDF now! 

2008 Update: Check out the new Online Fraud Guide website.
This website includes the full content of the PDF.

Download the PDF guide direct:
How to Lose a Million Dollars (or not): a merchant's guide to online fraud protection

Back in 2006, Attitude produced a guide to fraud prevention and protection for online merchants as part of our ecommerce business series. This has reference throughout to the store software we specialize in, osCommerce, but the guide is relevant to any kind of shopping cart software and therefore to anyone operating an online store. This lens has been built to publicize and offer some of this great content in a new setting.

You can read an Introduction to the Merchant's Guide to Online Fraud at osCommerce Watch.

Some questions to help you assess your risk of fraud ... 

  1. What fraud prevention and monitoring procedures do you have in place?
  2. Do you have a policy that outlines how the business treats the issue of fraud?
  3. How much money and customer trust could you lose to fraud before your business is seriously crippled?
  4. Do you let customers know that orders will be authenticated to rule out fraud?
  5. Do you manually check each suspicious order/customer profile?
  6. Who monitors and analyzes fraud related activity, and who follows up on suspicious orders?
  7. Are relevant employees in your business aware of fraud warning signs and how to report them?
  8. Do you keep records of customer transactions?
  9. Do you keep records of order statistics for individual stock items/services?
  10. Do you know which countries/areas are considered high-risk for online fraud?

If you have difficulty answering the questions, or if you answer 'no' or 'none', you should increase your awareness of fraud and improve fraud-related business processes.

Note: these questions are by no means complete, but they should alert you to some of the issues and clarify some areas where preventative measures are required.

Online Fraud Protection Tips 

It's important to watch for common signs of fraud. Though the circumstances below often apply to honest customers, they can also be indicators of illegal activity.

Pay closer attention to orders that are:
  • Unusually large
  • Shipping to an address that isn't the billing address
  • Shipping to countries you don't normally ship to (especially if in high-risk areas)
  • Shipping multiple identical items
  • Unable to pass an address verification process
  • Out of the ordinary in any way

Pay closer attention to customers who:
  • Use an anonymous/free email address (like hotmail.com)
  • Supply a non-existent or under-construction website address
  • Use a disconnected or changed telephone number
  • Supply a fake-sounding physical address (such as 123 Side Street) or only a post office box number
  • Want shipping as quickly as possible at any price
  • Do not pass credit or identity checks
  • Don't make immediate full payment
  • Are first time buyers

Pay closer attention to credit card numbers that:
  • Generate multiple orders over a short time span, especially if each order ships to a different address
  • Are one of several card numbers shipping to the same address

Five Fraud Prevention Tips 

Updated Daily

Loading Fetching RSS feed... please stand by

What else is in the online fraud guide? 

  • Online credit card fraud and other types of online fraud
  • The effects of online fraud
  • Risk assessment
  • What to watch out for
  • High-risk areas
  • Preventive measures
  • What to do if you've been defrauded
  • Useful links


Visit the site: Online Fraud Guide Website

Download the PDF guide direct:
How to Lose a Million Dollars (or not): a merchant's guide to online fraud protection

Other content from Attitude ... 

osCommerce Watch Blog

Lots of great commentary and information on osCommerce and using osCommerce to run a successful online store.

osCommerce Documentation and Articles

This features Attitude's Simple osCommerce Guides, which are printable, step-by-step guides to help new store owners learn some of the essential processes related to running their online store.

This is also home of the osCommerce business series which includes a review of osCommerce, an article on changing shopping cart software and the online fraud guide.

by attitudenz

NZ based Web Developer
(more)

Explore related pages

Google Checkout: Worth the Risk?
Imagine yourself in this seller's place. After spending countless hours designin...
Online Stores and Lenses - promoting your ecommerce website on Squidoo
How Squidoo can help you promote your online store. A quick guide to building a...
What is osCommerce? Customizable Open Source Ecommerce
osCommerce is a powerful open source solution to your ecommerce or shopping cart...
Extra Income Sources for Your Church
If church collections have declined because of the economy, your church is likel...
Where can I buy osCommerce books online?
Learn where to buy osCommerce Books and manuals online.
Shopping Carts – Key to a Better Business
If you are not concerned with finding a great shopping cart for your online stor...

Related Topics

attitudenz Recommends...

Create a Lens!