Need business advice. Any entrepreneur here?

[gashhell]

I own a small supplies shop. The shop next to me recently got defrauded. I was talking to the owner of that shop earlier and it made me really conscious of how I'm vulnerable to such risks too.

Unfortunately, I didn't understand half of what he said. He was ranting and was really speaking fast so i couldn't follow what he was saying. I think he had an IT company investigate what happened. It seems like he had several large purchases from a single ip address and he didn't notice this.

I'm thinking maybe I should hire a company or maybe tighten my security? Any tips on how I can monitor online orders? Is there a software that can do this?

I really don't want to be defrauded. Please help! Thanks.

[murrieta angler]

That has happened to me as well, the company said it was a computer error, (So they said)
Having that being said, you have a few options;

1) First and foremost, you must be diligent and look at your account every day. It sucks, but no one else is going to look after your money like you should.

2) Pay by check. That way you can only be billed once, if defrauded.

3) Use credit card that will monitor and protect you against such type of fraud. If it does go through, the credit card company has to eat the additional charges.
It will be a fight, but that is their job. Also, if you payoff your account every month, you will earn points. Last year I made almost $1,000 off of one credit card.

Last,
Google the company that you want to use. Check them out on BBB, yelp, CSLB (If it applies)...etc
Also ask for references from the company you are buying from. They should gladly give you names of a few companies they do business with.

If you are a young company, you can almost expect to get ripped off at one point or another.
There are dishonest people out there and they want an easy buck.
I've been in business for almost 18 years and people still try to get over on me.

Hope this helps,
Robert
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[DarkShadow]

I'd first investigate what current protection you have today with your currently installed merchant processor on your website. If you have an online 'store,' that means you have a merchant processor that you do business with, who either charges you a percentage per transaction, or you pay a monthly set fee.

I know that with our merchant processor, we have customizable thresholds that allow us to limit various things, like the amount of purchases that can be made from a single IP address. If we see an IP using multiple cards that continually fail, we will blacklist the specific IP address.

We also have a fraud prevention team that analyzes orders every day, and we will even proactively call individuals back if we feel there was a processing discrepancy. We do this to prevent them from calling their credit card company, and going through the process of them issuing us a Chargeback, which means we have to refund the original price, plus pay a penalty per Chargeback.

Instead, we try to refund the fraudulent charge before the card holder calls their bank, the bank will confirm that the money was refunded, and a Chargeback won't occur. That is why it's important to monitor every single transaction you see, and not be afraid to place a 'courtesy' call to verify that a charge is legitimate. If not, offer to refund the card holder immediately and ask them to call their bank as their information has been compromised.

Check who you have your merchant services through. They will be able to steer you in the right direction.

Realize that the inherent problem with online ordering is that you can't check someone's identity and watch them swipe the actual card. That is why online merchant processors offer anti-fraud protection with their services. We are lucky enough to sell 'services' online, and not actual products that we ship, so if we do see a fraudulent purchase go through, all we do is shut off services. We're lucky we don't 'ship' products out.

[gashhell]

Thanks for your helpful replies! I really appreciate it.

Anyway, I have finally gotten hold of my neighbor yesterday and I asked him what he plans on doing to prevent the incident from happening again. He told me that he was advised to use this company's services (http://www.tsysmerchantsolutions.com/). I'll probably use their services too once everything's settled down. That is, once they've done whatever it is that they're going to do for my neighbor. Maybe they'll install some software for security?

[glumboiled]

Hi, gashhell, your neighbor experience with that company could be one of the good sources in handling and settling down support issues. Yes, I think that they can install software too for security. I also have read once online that there are companies who renders such services for their clients.

[DarkShadow]

Maybe they'll install some software for security?

I'm still not to clear on exactly what you need services for.

Are you looking for protection from fraud that may occur through your online orders?

And do you also have a current Point of Sale system in your brick and mortar store that you want to update as well?

Because if you're only worrying about fraud via your online orders, there is no software to install. The Merchant Processing handles everything on their end.