With a Merchant Account you will be contracted directly with the Acquiring bank, an Acquiring Bank is the one that finally will withdraw the money from the card holder and credit it your bank account.

With a Merchant Account you will also be assured that the financial institution or Acquiring Bank that handles your money will be regulated by Federal Banking Regulations which often protects you against losses of your money. I say often because 2008 and 2009 showed us the opposite, but under normal circumstance your money is safe in the bank.

You will need to contract with a Payment Service Provider which facilities you with a payment gateway to transmit the credit card transaction to the Acquiring Bank; you will have the benefits that most payment gateways will offer you a wide range of services like real time transaction overview and anti fraud tools to protect you from fraudulent orders.

Also most Acquiring Banks offer you other payment methods then just to accept credit card payments on your websites, most of them offer debit card payments for instant payments made by Visa Electron or Maestro, other payment methods could by ACH check processing, local debit cards country specific.
Finally by contracting directly with the bank you will need to be approved by them, which in most case isn’t any issue any longer, but they might have some stricter demands.

With a third party merchant account or 3rd party payment processor you won’t have all the mentioned features but you will have other benefits. For instant it is much easier and faster to get approved with a 3rd Party processor since they will do the merchant underwriting and take the risk on behalf of the merchant.

Some business models and sectors are simply not accepted by the banks directly, they require you to go through a 3rd party payment service provider with has specialized itself in the fields of certain businesses.
Most 3rd party payment service providers offer their services to the Adult Entertainment and Online casino business and have for that purpose incorporated mechanisms to protect merchants against chargebacks and other type of frauds.

The most different aspects of a 3rd party solution are:
You will be paid directly by the 3rd Party Merchant Account provider.
They will do the risk scoring of your transactions and the risk assessment of your business case.
The 3rd party payment processor will have way higher processing fees then you would get with a Merchant Account by an Acquiring bank, it can vary with 10% in differences.

If you are looking for a Payment Gateway and a Merchant Account then cclogic.com is able to help you, also if you are in the Adult Entertainment or Pharmacy business, contact us today.

The majority of fraud committed online is through using stolen credit card information; various methods are employed to obtain this, such as copying information from retailers, stealing it from company databases and even buying credit card information from company employees. We are constantly being told by the credit card industry that online purchases are safe, but, as with any transaction there are always risks involved.

Fraudulent transactions cause losses for credit card organisations as only a small percentage is actually recoverable, either by locating the thieves or recouping a portion from merchants. In the Visa and MasterCard rules, a merchant’s processing bank is fully accountable for every transaction processed.

If the merchant conducts business illegally or recklessly and causes lots of chargebacks, the provider can be left with huge losses. To prevent this, the provider passes some of the costs on to the merchant if they haven’t carried out sufficient security checks and completed all the card details correctly, these are the chargebacks. The merchant then has to cover the total cost of the transaction, transaction fees and is forced to pay chargeback penalty.

Because of these chargebacks, online merchants are recognising the need to take some responsibility in installing precautions to protect their online stores from credit card fraud. Anti-fraud systems are being acquired by merchants using highly secure anti-fraud tools and merchants are commonly signing up for services offered by the main credit card organisations, Visa and MasterCard SecureCode aim to dispel some of the apprehension customers feel when buying products online. These services involve customers registering a password with their card issuer and every time they use the card online they are asked for their personal password.

If you are looking for accepting credit card payments then please visit cclogic.com

Some customers will actually prefer to call rather than send an email and wait for a reply, especially if it is a quick query or regarding a refund. Once the query has been dealt with and the customer now wants to make a purchase it would be inconvenient for them to return to the website, they might decide not to bother and so you lose the sale. A virtual terminal means the merchant can take a sale over the phone by processing the customer’s credit card payment manually. Virtual terminals are also used to issue returns and cancel unwanted transactions.

Credit cards have become the most common and convenient way to pay online but there are still people who don’t own one; you don’t want to turn these people away and lose a sale. Whereas written cheques used to be the norm, there are now electronic checks (eChecks) available. No need to write out a cheque, post it, wait for it to arrive and clear, customers can merely enter their bank details by electronic means.

The main headache for online merchants is security. Along with your business information, your customers’ personal information moves through your gateway every day. This information is invaluable to hackers; when choosing a gateway ensure you select one that uses the highest security techniques to keep information safe. These should include security schemes operated by the main credit card providers, such as the Visa Cardholder Information Security Program, MasterCard Site Data Protection, and Discover Information Security and Compliance. If your gateway provider doesn’t comply with these you could end up paying higher fees or your account closed down. Check out the Internet for a quality payment gateway provider that offers a high level of anti-fraud tools to protect you and your customers.

If you need a Payment Gateway or Merchant Account you can take a look at CCLOGIC LLC – click the link in this line.

I came across some forums where some service providers of BIN (Bank Identification number) numbers offered those for sale. There are a lot of great Credit Card Anti Fraud providers that offer access to those numbers, however, the credit card association like Visa and MasterCard do not accept any member sharing them.

What are the BIN numbers used for ? If you Accept Credit Card Payments on your website or even Offline through a Virtual Terminal, then you can quickly compare live transactions against the BIN’s to validate the credit card number, also if a card is stolen, it will be listed as Stolen Card in the BIN database. So you will like to have an up to date BIN database to be effective.

So it is a question of where those numbers are released. If you Accept Credit Card Payments you will properly have faced fraud, fraud like someone that have bought a product or service from you and then made a chargeback or fraud where your credit card processor notified you that the transaction for a certain transaction was fraud due to wrong or non existing address or the card number is from a stole card.

What can you do about it? You will need to find a solution provider which is specialized in Credit Card Fraud on the Internet; you will be interested in looking at services like MaxMind or similar. The only problem is that most services only offer you a limited range of options to prevent fraud. They do offer you key data and some offer you a Management Interface where you can set up a few rules but so far no one offers a complete solution which protects you against fraud and where you can customize the system to meet your business requirements, sorry, there are a few companies but most small and medium sized companies cant effort the costs for it.
A good alternative would be to get those BIN numbers which I explained at the beginning of this post; however you will need to build your own script or software to use the BIN’s effectively. It makes no sense to buy them and just compare your Internet credit card transactions against the database, it needs more.

The question is; why does the card association not release this information the authorized payment service providers or at least let those companies compare their data against the BIN’s it would increase fraud dramatically. It is a question which will be left unanswered, sorry.

A theory could be that it is for security reasons and because the card association and its members not have full control of each and every payment gateway provider to make sure that they don’t release it to unauthorized people. This obviously is true, since if they had, there would not be that many companies offering the BIN’s for sales.

A good advice, if you offer your customers to pay online at your website and you also want to Accept Credit Card Payments, than use the tools available, even if they are not sufficient it is better than not have anything and just see the charge backs coming.

This posts contains the opinions of CCLOGIC LLC and its authors and don’t the opinions of neither the Card Association nor other Payment Service Providers.

Credit card fraud is an increasing threat to businesses selling goods and services through the internet. Online merchants have to offer their clients payment by credit card if they want to increase sales and keep existing customers, however, if fraudsters have used a stolen credit card or its data to purchase goods the merchant loses money because of chargeback penalties. Merchants can refuse to accept transactions that they are suspicious of in order to avoid chargeback penalties; however, this can have a detrimental effect as the merchant could end up losing out on legitimate sales.

Normally a chargeback will start with the credit card holder noticing a discrepancy on their statement whereby they will have been charged for a purchase that wasn’t authorized by them, they will make a complaint to the credit card provider. Mostly, the merchant is responsible for the fraudulent transaction, unless they can show that the transaction was valid. The provider will take the original amount from the merchant plus an administration fee levied by them, so the merchant loses the goods or services provided, plus the amount paid for them and the fee levied. This is known as the chargeback penalty. There could also be currency conversion commissions to be paid. The bank collects the chargeback fees as they arise so the merchants’ bank account could become overdrawn and bank charges incurred.  The merchant can appeal if they disagree with the charge and if the appeal succeeds then the merchant will be refunded the charges. 

Sometimes, a dishonest customer will purchase an item using their credit card online and then make a complaint to the credit card company that it is a fraudulent transaction, after they have received the goods. In these situations merchants can have trouble recuperating the payment.

If the merchant is dishonest or just doesn’t have the money to return then the credit card provider is liable for returning the funds to the customer, so to minimize this risk, the merchants chargeback risk is assessed rigorously.  Many credit card frauds can be stopped when the customer inputs their personal details; if the merchant has an efficient security check he will prevent many chargeback penalties himself as well as gaining a reputation as a trustworthy business with the credit card provider.

Credit card companies set a limit to the number of chargebacks generated by a merchant. If the number of chargebacks goes above this limit then the merchant will be fined by the company.  As well as penalties and fines imposed, chargebacks can also harm a merchants business and reputation. If, even after a fine is imposed, the number of chargebacks continues to be high, the credit card provider can decide that the costs are too high and cancel the merchants account. The merchant would be unable to accept credit cards as payment on his website and consequently lose out on sales. For some online merchants this would involve losing the majority of their sales and result in the end of their internet business.

There are many effective and valuable online credit card fraud systems on the market today that can help prevent chargeback penalties. The systems are designed to identify attempted fraud in the early ordering stages and alert the merchant so they can void the transaction. Many online merchants have no understanding of the extent of online fraud and overlook it until it is too late; awareness arrives with costs, fees and penalties. Costs of purchasing an anti-fraud system will far outweigh penalties incurred and protect your business reputation. There are a number of good websites that provide anti-fraud systems. A good system will protect you from fraudulent transactions, meaning less losses and more profit for your business and ultimately benefit your customers.

As more and more retail and service providers make the decision to sell their products online in order to meet demand, online credit card fraud increases and millions are spent in expenses each year. Most online fraud is committed by using stolen credit card information; the most common method is copying information from retailers, online or offline. Merchants who sell and ship their products online have to deal with the security issue of the credit card holder and card not physically present at the time of purchase, (commonly known as CNP – card not present) so the merchant has to depend on the details that the buyer inputs online. It is impossible for a merchant to verify that the purchase is legitimate. There are various ways to try to identify and prevent credit card fraud.

Each computer has its own unique address that identifies the location of the computer network. This is known as the IP address. You can identify where the order was placed by finding out the IP address.

Always be cautious of orders where the address for the item to be sent to is a Post office box number or a mail forwarding address. Google can check an address and identify if it is a mail forwarding company.

Unusual orders should always be carefully scrutinized. These might be requests for vast quantities of the same product or the same item ordered in multiple quantities. Also watch out for multiple orders placed from the same customer or orders placed with different names but the same credit card number or the same shipping address.

If the customer requests the order to be dispatched straight away don’t be inclined to rush through the security checks in order to not lose the sale. Many fraudsters do this deliberately, on the basis that if they give you limited time details won’t be checked thoroughly.

Some order processing software has referrer information on orders so you can look into which terms the customer used to find your site. When searching for products, people will normally search the category or the keywords products are advertised under, when fraudsters are looking they will be more likely to search under ‘overnight delivery’ or ‘international shipping’ rather than the keywords associated with the product.

Normally the billing address matches the shipping address, so if these differ take care to check through other details provided.

Contact details provided can sometimes send up discrepancies. Look out for the area/city given as the address and see if the area code is a match. If the customer uses a free email account, such as Yahoo, Hotmail or Google, be wary of email addresses that don’t match the customer’s name.

Many fraudulent transactions can be prevented straight away with vigilance and an awareness of what to look out for. If you are really unsure of an order never complete the transaction unless you have done everything you can to confirm the details. As the merchant, if a credit card is a fraud then the goods or services are lost along with the payment, the fees for processing the payment, any currency conversion commissions and there will be a chargeback penalty. On the other hand, if merchants refuse transactions as they are suspicious they face the chance of losing a legitimate sale.

There are a number of good websites that provide anti-fraud systems. A good system will protect you from fraudulent transactions, meaning less losses and more profit for your business and ultimately benefit your customers.