Reduce Your Chances of Financial Fraud

These days, customers largely prefer to pay for their purchases using their credit cards. It’s swift, convenient, and feels safer than carrying cash. Unfortunately, criminals have upgraded their techniques. Instead of mugging and pickpocketing, they now use credit card fraud and identity theft to rob customers and run up unscrupulous bills.

As a business, earning your customers’ trust is a big part of being successful. If they know their money – and their cards – are safe with you, they will continue to buy from you. There are several things you can do to ensure that your customers are happy and protected. First, offer high quality goods and services. Then ensure customers have a safe way to pay you.

Make sure your payment process is swift

When it comes to card transactions, delays are always a bad sign. If a card stays too long in the ATM, it may get swallowed. If a transaction produces too many errors, it might get blocked altogether. Get a payment processor that has minimal time lags. This can be achieved through instant verification and up-to-date software. This speed applies on all payment formats, whether it’s an online store, a card swiping through an electronic keypad, or a card swiped at a cash register.

Two of the most common ways for criminals to steal your card information are skimming and phishing. In skimming, a skimmer is placed on the electronic card reader and it steals your details. In phishing, a dummy site collects your data. Mobile payments evade both tactics because the card remains in your hand at all times, and the data is securely read.

Encrypt your online store

Customers feel unsafe making purchases on a site that doesn’t have an SSL certificate. This additional feature adds as ‘s’ to the end of your website, so that your url reads ‘https’ instead of just ‘www’ or ‘http’. The ‘s’ verifies additional security measures. Talk to your web master about SSL certification.

Alternatively, get a payment processor that has certification included in their merchant account. You can also find out what levels of encryption your payment processor uses. Some providers even use military-grade encryption levels. You can also ask about their compliance with PCI QIR standards, which helps to ensure security.

Finally, you can select a card payment system that is used by security-conscious firms. These include technology companies, phone makers, and software developers. If they trust a certain payment processor, then you know that you can too.

For more information on reducing your chances of financial fraud, or to sign up for a merchant account, please call (888) 924-2743 or go to Charge.com.