Prevent Credit Card Fraud – A certain amount of loss is expected in conducting business, but being smart and covering your bases can go a long way in saving your reputation and your bottom line. The two most common scenarios in credit card fraud are stolen credit cards used to make online purchases or customers claiming they never received their shipments.

Taking a look at the first problem, when credit cards are stolen the victims might not realize what’s happened until they get their statements 30 days down the road. If they chose to dispute the claims, you run the risk of being out the product and the payment. So what can you do?

One good idea is using an address verification service which runs a cross check of the address of the credit card holder against the address the customer gives. They could still trip you up with a shipping address, but most of the time thieves only have the credit card number and not all of the true card holder’s info. Also ISP address verification is the same idea but cross checks the computer the card holder owns against the computer they are using to make purchases.

Another tactic is requiring CVC2 and CVV2 numbers (security codes on the back of the card) for purchases. If the thief has the physical card then they could still get around this road block but it will weed out those scammers who just have the card number.

In the case of a legitimate purchase being made and then the customer claiming they never received the product, the best defense is shipping services with tracking numbers and delivery confirmation. This type of back up ensures you don’t chase off true customer concerns or wreck havoc on your customer service reputation by failing to recognize some claims but knowing the difference from the real one to the rip off.