Fraudulent Use of Credit Cards

[Larry Bohen]

Over the past two months, we have received several orders totalling 1000's
of dollars for audiobooks to be sent to Nigeria and Indonesia. Several
credit cards have been used. Most of the audiobooks have been bibles. There
must be a black market for these items.

In each instance we have communicated with the issuing bank (all in the USA)
and let them know about the fraudulent use. Our notification to the issuing
banks has usually been the first they knew about the stolen number.

I am curious what other online merchants do when they suspect / know that a
credit card is stolen. Do you contact the issuing bank?

[Richard - shoplite.com]

Hi Larry,
When credit cards are "freshly stolen" the thieves go crazy with them and
run them up to the credit limit as fast as possible before the card gets
cancelled. Most fraudulent orders get approved by the issuing bank for this
reason. We used to call the banks but now only call them when we're not too
sure if the order is fruadulent or not. It's just too expensive for us to
call all the time.
Richard
www.shoplite.com

[Gary Kennedy]

We have stopped shipping overseas because of the lack of AVS. Credit card
companies don't stand behind an order with only an authorization number. We
also stopped next day orders to a different shipping address. We found that
most thieves shipped next day and of course they shipped to a different
address. With the advent of CVV2, it may be easier for a while to spot a
bad card. We review every order individually to see if there are any bad
signs. We will call customers to see if the number is good. In a lot of
cases the phone number is bogus. We never ship without an AVS match period.
We average a bad sale every other month or so now.

Gary Kennedy
gkennedy1@hvc.rr.com

"Richard - shoplite.com" <rruda@shoplite.com> wrote in message
news:ab019k$n8d$1@support.shopsite.com...

Hi Larry,
When credit cards are "freshly stolen" the thieves go crazy with them and
run them up to the credit limit as fast as possible before the card gets
cancelled. Most fraudulent orders get approved by the issuing bank for
this
reason. We used to call the banks but now only call them when we're not
too
sure if the order is fruadulent or not. It's just too expensive for us to
call all the time.
Richard
www.shoplite.com

[Nikolaus Gruchot]

Hi Larry,

we receive these "Indonesian" orders as well. Here is what I do:

1. I have contacted the company that is handling our VISA/MC charges. They
have a fraud department. I got a name and a fax number from this appartment,
called them up and now I am faxing them copies of any incoming strange order
straight away. They check on the cc number / name and if fraudulent, they
block the number immediately and inform the issuing bank.

2. I do sent an email to the email address supplied with the order,
explaning very politely, that "... We do principally not deliver to
customers, who are trying to pay with stolen credit card information. We
have turned the order over to the law enforment agency for further
investigation. Have a nice day....!" This normally gives us some break for
more fraudulent orders, as these guys seem to talk to each other and they
stop submitting orders at least for some weeks

Regards from Germany,
Niko

P.S: We have now also fraud orders coming from "Moldawia". Beware!

"Larry Bohen" <lbohen@audiobooksonline.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:aau2uo$fog$1@support.shopsite.com...

Over the past two months, we have received several orders totalling 1000's
of dollars for audiobooks to be sent to Nigeria and Indonesia. Several
credit cards have been used. Most of the audiobooks have been bibles.
There
must be a black market for these items.

In each instance we have communicated with the issuing bank (all in the
USA)
and let them know about the fraudulent use. Our notification to the
issuing
banks has usually been the first they knew about the stolen number.

I am curious what other online merchants do when they suspect / know that
a
credit card is stolen. Do you contact the issuing bank?

[Larry Bohen]

Niko; Thanks for your comments.

My main reason for posting was to find out what other merchants do when they
get orders with stolen credit cards.

I like that you contact the issuing bank. Merchants MUST help themselves
(and each other) by notifying the issuing bank ASAP when they suspect a
stolen card. The earlier an issuing bank is aware of fraudulent use, the
earlier the card number will be cancelled, thus protecting other merchants
from getting authorization for the same card number.

In that all our stolen credit card situations (all issued by USA banks) have
come from Nigeria and Indonesia, I believe the thieves must be hacking into
the issuing bank's databases. I hope the issuing banks are making their
databases more hack-proof.

Regards

"Nikolaus Gruchot" <gruchot@watersafety.net> wrote in message
news:ab5tqf$ekn$1@support.shopsite.com...

Hi Larry,

we receive these "Indonesian" orders as well. Here is what I do:

1. I have contacted the company that is handling our VISA/MC charges. They
have a fraud department. I got a name and a fax number from this
appartment,
called them up and now I am faxing them copies of any incoming strange
order
straight away. They check on the cc number / name and if fraudulent, they
block the number immediately and inform the issuing bank.

2. I do sent an email to the email address supplied with the order,
explaning very politely, that "... We do principally not deliver to
customers, who are trying to pay with stolen credit card information. We
have turned the order over to the law enforment agency for further
investigation. Have a nice day....!" This normally gives us some break for
more fraudulent orders, as these guys seem to talk to each other and they
stop submitting orders at least for some weeks

Regards from Germany,
Niko

P.S: We have now also fraud orders coming from "Moldawia". Beware!

"Larry Bohen" <lbohen@audiobooksonline.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:aau2uo$fog$1@support.shopsite.com...
Over the past two months, we have received several orders totalling
1000's
of dollars for audiobooks to be sent to Nigeria and Indonesia. Several
credit cards have been used. Most of the audiobooks have been bibles.
There
must be a black market for these items.

In each instance we have communicated with the issuing bank (all in the
USA)
and let them know about the fraudulent use. Our notification to the
issuing
banks has usually been the first they knew about the stolen number.

I am curious what other online merchants do when they suspect / know
that
a
credit card is stolen. Do you contact the issuing bank?

[Nikolaus Gruchot]

Hi Larry,

agree that stolen cc's should be blocked asap.

I do not think that somebody hacks bank databases. I do think however that a
lot of users are really careless when handling their cc data on the
internet. It is enough to once enter cc data in an unsecure form.....

There are several warez sites on the net which do not offer only cracked
software, but also cc data or also login information for - sites. The
12-year old son of a collegue once showed me his collection, when I was
helping him to set up a LAN router for him. He didn't have a clue about
hardware, but it took him only 3 minutes to locate a serial number for a new
network game he wanted to run.

Niko

"Larry Bohen" <lbohen@audiobooksonline.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:ab5v1a$ep4$1@support.shopsite.com...

Niko; Thanks for your comments.

My main reason for posting was to find out what other merchants do when
they
get orders with stolen credit cards.

I like that you contact the issuing bank. Merchants MUST help themselves
(and each other) by notifying the issuing bank ASAP when they suspect a
stolen card. The earlier an issuing bank is aware of fraudulent use, the
earlier the card number will be cancelled, thus protecting other merchants
from getting authorization for the same card number.

In that all our stolen credit card situations (all issued by USA banks)
have
come from Nigeria and Indonesia, I believe the thieves must be hacking
into
the issuing bank's databases. I hope the issuing banks are making their
databases more hack-proof.

Regards