Checking for fraud

[brain357]

Last year I had a lot of fraud orders so I'm a bit shy this year. One frauder placed 3 big orders last year before I got a chargeback. Then in January I got a chargeback from a December order. Person said her husband thought it was fraud, but the money was still lost in a chargeback. So now this year every large order makes me nervous. Is there anything I should be checking? I use PayPal for payments.

[plan2succeed]

You should be making your clients fill out an authorization form to run larger payments. Even if it is through paypal. Paypal is great, but sometimes their refund and protections do not protect the seller. Cover yourself by making your clients sign authorizations. This will give you a paper trail if they decide to do a chargeback. Don't be nervous, enjoy the large orders and keep growing your business!!

[Harold Mansfield]

From experience, I love Pay Pal for a lot of the services and convenience they afford me, but they suck when it comes to charge backs. You're basically screwed from the beginning, especially if it's from a credit card company because they have no leverage to fight them, and must comply with the card company who is ALWAYS going to rule in favor of their customers.

I'm not sure what kind of amounts we're talking, but it they are significant I would stop using Pay Pal for the large orders and get a processor that takes their direct credit card number. It's a little harder to charge back when they are directly paying for it, typing in the card number, and not through a 3rd party account.

Also, you probably want to go through your sales process from front to back to see if there's anything in there that leads to confusion or may be the reason for so many. Many times a retailer will leave things vague or unclear just to get the sale, but it's hardly worth it if you have a high level of charge backs which cost far more than never getting the sale in the first place.

[GroupISO]

Last year I had a lot of fraud orders so I'm a bit shy this year. One frauder placed 3 big orders last year before I got a chargeback. Then in January I got a chargeback from a December order. Person said her husband thought it was fraud, but the money was still lost in a chargeback. So now this year every large order makes me nervous. Is there anything I should be checking? I use PayPal for payments.

Sorry to hear about those fraudsters! Chargebacks can be a pain. I would suggest trying out an actual merchant account company that has in-house chargeback team members to help you out. Some things you can do on your own to help prevent chargebacks in the future would be to make sure your descriptor matches the name of your business/website. Ship the orders to same billing address as the cardholder's. Exercise caution when accepting payments from certain countries. Make sure your description is accurate and your refund policy is solid.