Starting an Online Business All-in-One For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Managing the Payment Process to Protect Your Income

Believe it or not, one day you will receive a fraudulent charge back from a customer. You lose the money, plus handling fees charged by the credit card company.

Of course, a charge back is only one type of online fraud you have to worry about. Dealing with stolen credit cards is another common headache.

Don't despair yet. Credit card companies, payment gateways, and processors are working diligently to help protect your online business from thieves. All you have to do is choose to implement their protective services. To help minimize your risks, search out these standard security features from your payment gateway provider:

• Address verification service (AVS): Each time an order is placed, the physical street address that's on file with the credit card issuer is compared to the billing address the customer gives you with an order.
• Card code verification (CCV): Customers must enter both a credit card account number and a special three-digit code called the CCV. The code is usually on the back of the credit card.
• Filtering: You can use several security filtering tools. One type allows you to set a monetary limit for additional security checks on orders that exceed that amount. Other filters screen for suspicious orders and identify IP addresses that have excessive amounts of purchases within a short period.
• Address blocking: By using this tool, you can block IP addresses from your site. In this case, the addresses are known sources ...