|
Warning
Signs
of E-Commerce Fraud
(Source: Yahoo)
1.
Suspect ship address. Most fraudulent orders come from Romania,
Macedonia, Belarus, Pakistan, Russia, Lithuania, Egypt,
Nigeria, Colombia, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
2.
Untraceable email address. In fraud orders, the customer's
email address is often at one of the free email services,
like Hotmail or Usa.net, which are comparatively untraceable.
3.
Expensive items. Be wary of big orders, especially for brand-name
items.
4.
Multiple items. It is a bad sign, for example, if someone
orders three watches or three Walkmen at once.
5.
Express shipping. Most fraudulent orders specify overnight
or 1-day shipping.
6.
Shipping address differs from billing address. If you are
selling valuable items, it can be a good policy only to
ship to the billing address of the card.
7.
Suspicious billing address. If the billing address is 123
Main St, New York, the order is probably fraud. You can
use Yahoo! Maps to see if the address really exists.
8.
New Site. Newly opened sites are more often targeted, perhaps
in the belief that the merchants will be inexperienced.
9.
Leave at door. If someone placing a very valuable order
says just to leave it at the door, it could be a sign that
a crook is using some unwitting person's house as a drop-off
point. (Solution: require a signature.)
10.
As a general rule, you should never ship a valuable order
unless it checks out. And be aware that, for international
orders, getting a valid authorization is no guarantee that
the order is legitimate.
|
