Merchant Guide

The Address Verification System (AVS) is a system used to verify the identity of the person claiming to own the credit card. The system will check the billing address of the credit card provided by the user with the address on file at the credit card company. The other security features for the credit card include the CVV2 number. At present, only a few countries support AVS on Visa® and MasterCard, notably the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom. American Express does not support AVS in other countries than the USA.

The Address Verification System was originally used in the case of in person purchases where merchants could verify cards because they had embedded holograms or on-card photo ids. However, this does not help with online, phone, or mail transactions. But, AVS can provide secure payment gateways by having the merchant verify credit card data, such as billing address and zip code, against the Visa®/Mastercard billing information of the cardholder. This layer of security protection allows merchants to further investigate a transaction if the billing information provided by the Address Verification System does not match that the customer provides.

It benefits the merchant to use the Address Verification System because they are fully liable for all transactions they take that are performed without the person being in front of them. So if they accept a fraudulent transaction, they experience what is known as a chargeback. A chargeback refunds the customer from the merchant’s bank account. In addition, the merchant must pay a fine to the bank and credit card associations penalize them.

By using the Address Verification System, a merchant can protect both the customer and yourself from counterfeit charges. To learn more about the AVS,  click here.

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Merchant Account Basics

This article should give you a good working understanding of how secure credit card processing works.

If you are not quite ready to boost up your website with e-commerce functionality, don’t worry, the following information is valuable in evaluating your needs. If you are considering getting secure credit card processing on your website for the upcoming holidays, now is the time.

The internet represents a tremendous opportunity for your business – whether you’re an entrepreneur looking to market and sell your idea or a large corporation searching for new ways to increase sales.

Selling goods and services on the internet presents its own set of challenges — like how to set up and maintain a secure, reliable, cost-effective system for authorizing payments and managing transactions. If you don’t know what you’re doing – and sometimes even if you do – that can be a difficult, complicated, and expensive task.
Credit card processing removes the barriers that might prevent you from doing business on the internet.

You’ll need an automated payment system, a credit card merchant account, and a computer with an internet connection. You can do everything within your web browser.

Overview

What is Credit Card Processing ?

A real time credit card processing system is a transaction processing system that functions as a payment service using a secure transaction server on the internet. Merchants with a valid merchant account can use the system to submit, authorize, capture, and settle credit card or eCheck transactions without the need for a separate transaction terminal or processing software.

Methods Of Processing Transactions

Virtual Terminal

Virtual Terminal is hosted completely on our transaction servers, where merchants simply login using their favorite web browser and perform live transactions using their merchant account. A merchant can enter a transaction manually and a virtual terminal will process the transaction in real-time just like a physical card terminal would.

Web Link

Web Link allows a merchant to link their web site to the system in order to accept credit card payments from customers in real-time with complete automation.

ADC (Automated Direct Connect)

Automated Direct Connect provides a simple and straight forward mechanism to link more complex web sites with the transaction gateway server, including support for the merchant’s own custom programming.

Merchant Accounts

The system is separate from your merchant account. The terms and conditions of your merchant account are between you and your bank or merchant provider, and should be consulted for specific information related to your merchant agreement with your bank or merchant provider.

A merchant account is required to accept credit cards. A merchant account is a special account with a bank that is a member of the Visa and MasterCard associations. Such a bank has been certified by Visa and MasterCard associations and can provide you, the merchant, with all of the services related to your merchant account.

Once your merchant account is setup and “live” on the credit card system, you can accept credit cards from customers generally as follows:

1. A customer presents their credit card for payment

2. Using their credit card number, you submit an electronic request to the processing network for “authorization to capture funds” from the carholder’s credit card account in the amount of the purchase.

Traditionally, one would submit this request by swiping a credit card through an electronic transaction terminal provided by the bank. With the system, this request is provided electronically to our payment gateway servers, which then route the request along the processing network.

3. The processing network immediately receives your electronic request and determines if the carholder’s account is valid and if the funds are available. If they are, the processing network returns an electronic response to your terminal or computer. This response is called an “authorization code”, and is your guaranteed authorization to capture the funds. Typically, this code is a six-digit number. The transaction and its associated authorization are stored in a “batch”, where other transactions for that day reside.

4. You print a receipt for the customer using the electronic terminal or your computer and the customer signs the receipt. As far as the customer is concerned, the transaction is complete. As far as you the merchant are concerned, there is one more step to complete the transaction.

5. At the end of your business day (usually), a final request is submitted to the processing network to go ahead and “capture the funds” that you obtained authorizations for during the course of business that day. This is called “settlement” or “settling your batch”. With a traditional physical credit card swipe terminal, this settlement process must be initiated manually. One of the key advantages of our system is that this settlement process is initiated automatically every day on our end.

6. At settlement time, the processing network immediately receives your response electronically and determines if the capture amounts contained in your request match the authorizations for each item. If so, the request is granted and an “Accepted” response is returned to your electronic terminal or computer. A settlement report can be printed showing the grand totals by card type (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, etc) for the settled batch. Note: any corrections to your batch, such as voiding a transaction, must be made prior to settlement.

7. Within 48 to 72 hours (usually), the funds associated with the batch you settled are deposited electronically into your business bank account. Typically, the discount rate you pay to your merchant account provider are deducted from the deposit before it transferred to your bank account, resulting in a “net deposit” of funds.

8. At the end of the month, your merchant account provider will mail a statement to you, detailing the credit card activity for the month and the associated fees you have been charged for such.

Now that you understand the basics of how a credit card merchant account works, you can see the role that the system has in the processing of your credit card transactions.

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Introduction

Credit card fraud is something that can never be completely eliminated, but rather something that must be managed. Merchants must develop a delicate balance between using safeguards to prevent fraud and not creating too many hoops for customers to jump through. In Part #1, we talked about fraud prevention basics like AVS and how-to authorize transactions properly.

After a credit card processor or registration service approves an order, the merchant needs to perform additional checks, as fraudulent orders sometimes are approved. The merchant should not depend on the credit card company, or the registration service, to stop all fraudulent orders.

Tools to combat Fraud

There are many tools out there to help combat fraud and to list them all will easily fill another article. In order to identify the best solution or your business, you must clarify these questions first:

• Are you in danger of losing your merchant account by running chargebacks above 1%?
• Do you want to handle fraud and chargebacks yourself or focus on your main business instead?
• Out of 10 chargebacks, how many are due to fraud?
• How much time and resources (staff, money, etc.) do you currently spend on fraud & chargebacks?

One you have the answers to these questions you are fully prepared to seek the best solution for your business. For a great comparison of the most common fraud tools out there, subscribe to our newsletter and stay tuned for upcoming articles.

Card Verification Methods (CVM)

Card Verification Methods (VISA = CVV2, MasterCard = CVC2, and American Express = CID use a security code of 3 or 4 extra digits imprinted on the card, but not embedded or encrypted in the magnetic stripe. This verification code does not appear on credit card receipts. Since most fraudulent transactions result from stolen card numbers rather than the actual theft of the card, a customer that supplies this number is much more likely to be in possession of the credit card. VISA claims that the use of AVS with CVV2 validation for card-not-present transactions can reduce chargebacks by as much as 26%.

Merchants that accept Internet, mail-order, and telephone orders must be prepared to request the verification code when the cardholder is not present to help validate a transaction. Even if a merchant cannot confirm the CVV2 number, they can still ask for it, or provide a space for the number on their web order form. If the crook does not have the number, they could look somewhere else to commit their fraud. The merchant is not allowed to store the CVM numbers. This is against PCI compliance regulations and can cost you tens of thousands of dollars for every single violation. Be careful not to store the CVM codes at any time.

Payer Authentification Programs:

Authentification programs (Verified by Visa and MasterCard’s SecureCode) use personal passwords to ensure the identity of the online card user. If merchants use this program, card issuers may occur some of the losses for online fraud that was previously entirely borne by the merchants. If merchants do not participate, they remain liable for the losses.

The pop up windows for authentification can be blocked if card holders have installed software to disable pop-ups. This also adds an extra step in the ordering process. There is also an additional processing fee incurred by the merchant. Another loophole is if the customer claims they never received the merchandise. We have seen information indicating Visa always trusts their card holders, so the customer gets their money back and the merchant gets stuck with a chargeback.

Even if Visa rules against the merchant, the merchant can still take the customer to small claims court. If the merchant can prove the customer did receive the product, the merchant is entitled to recover the value of the product plus all their costs when they win. Most licenses included with software includes a clause concerning court actions. This is one more reason to keep accurate records, document customer phone calls, keep copies of emails, delivery signatures, and web logs.

BIN CHECK

The first 6 digits of the credit card are called the Bank Identification Number (BIN). You can determine if the credit card holder and the issuing bank for the credit card are located in the same country. Legitimate users sometimes use a credit card from another country. You can enter the BIN of a credit card number at http://www.bindatabase.net. The site provides the bank name, card type, and a 3 character code for the country.

CALLING THE CARD-ISSUING BANK

When you call the card-issuing bank, have your merchant number, your phone number, the customer’s full name, address, and phone number ready. You can ask the card-issuing bank to make a courtesy call to your customer to verify the charge.

DIFFERENT BILL AND SHIP TO ADDRESSES

Use Google to search for the numeric street address, street name, and zip code. The web site at http://www.anywho.com integrates telephone numbers, maps, and email addresses. Check for bogus billing addresses like 123 Main Street. Use resources like http://maps.yahoo.com to see if the address can be verified. If the billing and shipping addresses are different, request telephone numbers for both addresses. You can also establish a company policy and charge an extra fee to recover your costs to require a delivery signature (UPS, Federal Express, post office) if the billing and shipping addresses are different. You could require advance payment with a cashiers check or money order when different ship to and bill to addresses are used.

Be careful of remailing services, such as Mailboxes, etc. Remailing services can remail your packages to overseas destinations.

Coming up next week: Learn the advanced database management techniques that will make fraudsters frustrate. And don’t forget to enter the Sweepstakes at http://www.SocialBusinessBank.com/win. It’s payback time. Till then, I’m waiting to hear some feedback from you. Contact me personally at Twitter (personal account).



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About Social Business Bank

Social Business Bank is Americas first Social Business Banking and Financial Institution. With Easy Shopping^tm and Easy Services^tm Social Business Bank provides full-service credit card acceptance and merchant account solutions for small businesses, social & non-profit entities and corporate organizations.

Questions?

We are looking forward to answer your questions: (888) 255-4162. If you want to know more about Social Business Bank visit http://www.socialbusinessbank.com or follow us on Twitter (corporate account)!

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Introduction:

This article suggests preventative methods and post-order procedures that merchants can perform to minimize credit card fraud. When a brick and mortar merchant accepts a credit card, and the charge is authorized, and assuming the merchant conforms to regulation, the merchant will get paid, even if a stolen card is used.

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Liability for fraud shifts from the card issuer to the merchant for ‘Card Not Present’ sale (mail order, telephone/fax order, and internet sales). The merchant is generally liable for credit card charge backs, even when the bank has authorized the transaction. After a merchant is stung by a fraud, the credit card processors often hike their rates, citing increased risk. The merchant also risks losing their accounts with the card companies if their fraud rate gets too high.

Everyone points fingers at everyone else (processors, banks, VISA/MasterCard, and the merchants). Law enforcement and government agencies tend to only investigate big cases. No one takes the blame for credit card fraud.

Forbes claims most credit card numbers are still stolen the old-fashioned way. Unethical retail store clerks and restaurant employees steal card numbers often using hand-held skimmer devices. A scam artist can go through the trash of any merchant (brick and mortar or e-commerce) or customer garbage, get valid credit card numbers, and use them on the Internet.

Industry analysts and e-merchants claim the credit-card companies have yet to come to grips with the full scope of the problem. None of the credit-card associations disclose exact loss-rate figures for fraud – Visa, MasterCard and American Express claim to have a handle on the problem overall.

Follow the Rules

Your chargeback rate is the risk indicator used by all processors to determine your processing rates. High chargeback ratios equal high risk; and the higher your perceived risk, the more likely contingencies such as rolling reserves, pay-out delays and high fees will be part of your merchant agreements.

If you suspect a fraudulent order being placed with your company, place a verification call and inform your processor of any fraudulent transaction. Everyone wins when the processor, the card issuing bank and the card holder are notified of a fraudulent or suspected fraudulent transaction.

Authorize the Transaction

Authorization approval does not mean that the merchant is guaranteed payment. Approval only indicates that at the time the approval was issued, the card hasn’t been reported stolen or lost, and that the card credit limit has not been exceeded. If someone else is using the credit card number illegally, the card holder has a right to dispute the ‘approved’ charges.

Address Verification System (AVS)

In the US, AVS checks if the cardholder’s address and zip code matches the information at the card-issuing bank. AVS only uses the zip code and numeric portion of the billing street address. There are many reasons why AVS may fail (recent address change, AVS computers down, etc.).

If the address verification fails on any level, the merchant may decline the transaction. If the AVS fails for any reason, the merchant should contact the customer for additional information (for example, the name of the issuing bank, the bank’s toll-free telephone number, etc.).

If your current system of authorization approval cannot provide AVS, then you can get address verification from the card holder’s issuing bank for MasterCard and VISA. Discover and American Express purchases can be verified by calling them directly.

Once a fraudster has a legitimate customer name and the stolen credit card number, they can use the Internet to look up their victim’s telephone number, address, and zip code. This allows a software purchase to pass AVS, and the fraudster can download the software before the fraud is reported. With orders that are shipped, the thief can provide the correct billing address for AVS approval, but request a different ship to address.

Coming up next week: Learn the advanced techniques that will make fraudsters frustrate. And don’t forget to enter the Sweepstakes at http://www.SocialBusinessBank.com/win. It’s payback time. Till then, I’m waiting to hear some feedback from you. Contact me personally at Twitter (personal account).

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3 Things You should know about PayPal

Check out Part 1 – is PayPal the alternative, a review about PayPal to get fast facts about the good and not-so-good sides of PayPal. In a nutshell PayPal is a great provider and may be just the right choice for you. This article will tell you what PayPal won’t tell you, the three things you should know about PayPal. If you’re ok with these risks, a PayPal account should be just about the right option for you. If you do have a problem with either one of these points, PayPal still might be a solution; you can decide best what is best for your business.

As the author of this article, I thank you in advance for your comments and posts. Feel free to let me know your two cents about this article; find me on Twitter @ SBBSam.

Sudden Account Termination

As such a huge provider like PayPal, they’re confronted with heaps of fraud every day and that makes them sensitive, very sensitive when it comes to protect their assets. Being huge unfortunately often also comes hand-in-hand with a “we don’t really care”-attitude. Mark, who’s running a small business for instance, woke up one day to see his PayPal account with over $50,000 balance frozen. “After weeks of trying to get my account activated, sending document after document, I was finally told that my account will remain suspended and that I could never use their system again” he writes in his post on Alexa.

Alex Tew, this name might ring a bell with you already, we featured him in our viral marketing article already, had the idea of the “million dollar homepage”. In a piece featured in the Entrepreneur magazine, Alex talks about the problems he had with PayPal when they went ahead and blocked his account (high volumes of transactions are often blocked by PayPal automatically in order to avoid money-laundering schemes.) just when his idea started to become big. It’s also a great article to get inspired; you can find the full article here.

PayPal’s Reserve Policy

It’s all about security and risk management. Unfortunately this can become quite problematic, particularly if you are relying on stable cashflows. The consumerist had a feature article about some customers that were hit by it. Melissa, a at-that-time PayPal customer said in the interview: “On July 1, without any notification or explanation whatsoever, PayPal has (daily) deducted 20% of our money from sales and put it into a “Rolling Reserve” account.”

Bill, an analyst at the risk department of PayPal, eventually came around and wrote a blog post after PayPal received massive critique from businesses and media alike. Please note that PayPal does not automatically run a rolling reserve on your payments, however, they may do so if they feel it is necessary.

Reputation

Most of PayPal’s success comes through eBay, its parent company. As an internet giant, eBay uses PayPal as a supported tool to run its daily auction transactions. Hence, many people immediately link PayPal with eBay and on-the-side businesses that are run in the basement in the evening hours after your regular job.

In short, PayPal doesn’t stand for much credibility. Many customers (like me) prefer to use a credit card directly. In my particular case for instance, I have my credit card linked to an old PayPal account which I’ve lost the access information for. PayPal support proofed unhelpful to get the account deactivated or removed so that I can link my card in my new account. So my new PayPal account cannot accept my credit card since it is already “in the system” but I can’t delete my old account either.

Paypal’s reputation isn’t the best after all. Alexa users rate PayPal services at a modest 2 ½ stars, with twice as many 1 star vs. 5 star ratings. Wikipedia even has a separate section where former PayPal customers vent about frozen accounts and rolling reserves.

It’s in the details; trust and reputation are very important. Did you know that PayPal generally keeps all the fees they charge on each transaction, even if the seller is forced to refund the monies received? It’s actions like these which gets people to even setup a separate website dedicated to the blunders of PayPal: http://www.paypalsucks.com

If these three points are not so important to you and not critical to your business success, PayPal can indeed be a great partner. Stay tuned for upcoming articles. Till then, I’m waiting to hear some feedback from you. Contact me personally at Twitter (personal account).

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Everybody knows PayPal; just in case you’re an astronaut who’s been discovering Mars for the past 10 years, Wikipedia covers the company and its history extensively. In short, PayPal allows you to send and accept payment and was bought by eBay, a giant in the online business, in 2002.

Particularly for start-ups PayPal is often referred as “the alternative” to a full merchant account. Today we’ll take a closer look at PayPal; there’s a big controversy about this topic here at SBB. On the one hand we feel that writing about PayPal might be interpreted as bad-mouthing a competitor, though on the other hand – being a merchant account acquirer ourselves – we can bring a lot of market insight and knowledge to the table. We did our best to point out the great aspects of this company along with the not-so-good sides possible merchants should be aware of.

As the lead author of this article, I thank you in advance for your comments and posts. Feel free to let me know if you liked this article or not, find me on Twitter @ SBBSam.

1. Pro #1:

Being part of a huge internet giant like eBay, PayPal is very unlikely to go out of business tomorrow. PayPal itself accounts for 10% of eBays total revenue already and is likely to become even bigger in the upcoming years. So apparently they must do something right; after all why should so many people go with PayPal if it wasn’t working, right?

1. Con #1:

Being big often times means that you’re just a number. Even larger companies, I mean the big guys processing north of $100 Million annually, share these kind of problems because for an $8 billion dollar giant it still means peanuts.

1. Pro #2:

With a global reach like PayPal’s, many people can pay you through their system. Implementation is fairly easy which makes it a prominent payment system particularly for start-ups and on-the-side businesses and most importantly, the technology in use is proven and works.

1. Con #2:

PayPal’s technology works; if they want it to work. All too often that’s exactly the problem. There are many angry customers out there who vent publicly in forums and internet pages about PayPal’s customer service. There’s even a full website dedicated to “PayPal nightmares”, though one must add to PayPal’s defense, it’s a pretty big organization and you can’t make everyone happy all the time.

Stay tuned for Part 2: 3 Things You must know about PayPal. Till then, I’m waiting to hear some feedback from you. Contact me personally at Twitter (personal account).

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We are looking forward to answer your questions: (888) 255-4162. If you want to know more about Social Business Bank visit http://www.socialbusinessbank.com or follow us on Twitter (corporate account)!
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Consumer rights coalition hopeful that mark-up will fix critical oversight

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Robert Johnson, President of Consumers for Competitive Choice (C4CC), released the following statement regarding the Senate Banking Committee’s mark-up of the Restoring Financial Stability Act of 2010, Chairman Dodd’s revised version of financial regulatory reform legislation, scheduled to begin today:

I am hopeful that the members of the Senate Banking Committee will make a critical fix to Chairman Dodd’s financial regulatory reform bill during the mark-up that begins today, and include a provision that addresses credit card swipe fees – specifically, that establishes debit-at-par. As the Chairman himself has noted, these increasing and excessive fees are outrageous and something needs to be done. The Chairman’s own financial reform bill provides the perfect vehicle to implement commonsense reform now.

“Small business owners across the country are preparing for additional increases to the already hefty debit card swipe fees next month, increases that are not justified in any way. It already costs merchants as much as 43 times as much to process debit cards as it does to process paper checks, even though they work the same way. As long as big banks and credit card companies have access to this unregulated revenue stream, increases like these will continue and more hard-earned American dollars will go to line the pockets of Wall Street executives.

“As the mark-up begins, I hope that the Senate Banking Committee sides with Main Street America. Commonsense reform that includes debit-at-par is a fix that will benefit small business owners and consumers alike.”

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About The Credit Card Con
The Credit Card Con is a project by the Consumers for Competitive Choice.
For more information, visit The Credit Card Con website at www.thecreditcardcon.com.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 18 , 2010

This was a guest post from The Credit Card Con.

If you want to know more about Social Business Bank visit http://www.socialbusinessbank.com or follow us on Twitter!

PRESS credit card fees, merchant account, Small Business