Your e-commerce has just been through a great sales period, overcoming expectations and generating a very significant revenue for the whole company. But right now, at the most exciting moment, bad news arrives: a chargeback. And another. And yet another. The alert sign is already ringing, and it is loud.
What can you do?
At Konduto, we want to help you. And for that reason, we have thought of 5 emergency tips for you to contain the financial “bleeding” your business might be facing, while an anti-fraud solution able to prevent online frauds is not implemented.
1. DO NOT PANIC!
Yes, this is a very important step. It is important to keep calm and know that the worse, unfortunately, is yet to come. Credit card fraud takes from 30 to 90 days to be noticed by the consumer, from him identifying unduly charges on the statement and contacting the bank to request the refund and cancellation of the card.
This means that fraudsters have a very large window to “work” after obtaining valid data from a credit card and finding a safety breach in the e-commerces. And they have no mercy: they hit the gas and fraud as much as they can.
When the fraud issue starts to show, the e-commerce must prepare itself: the scenario can get even worse, and chargebacks will pop up for one or two more months, committing a considerable slice of the business income. Therefore, take a deep breath, put a budget aside to cover the losses that are yet to come and adopt the motto:
2. Filter by product
Ok, apparently you kept calm and is ready to start acting. Now, prepare yourself: you might have to get a bit stingy in order to protect the health of your virtual store. We recommend you to put some “filters” in place to detect the transactions with greater chances of being frauds, and the first one is very obvious: the type of product.
What is your most expensive product/service? Or the most desired one? Or the one that can most likely be sold forward?
The answers to these questions can give you good evidence on the orders that must be carefully observed during this emergency moment. Be careful with the main items in your e-commerce: after all, fraudsters will not incur in crimes only to buy a packet of mint chocolate or a simple ballpoint pen.
3. Filter orders with high value
Sometimes, a fraudulent order does not only involve a very desired item, but a “point out of the curve” can be a good indicator to raise suspicions. Therefore, look at your internal metrics and find the average ticket for your online store (that is: how much a client spends by purchase, on average?).
If a client usually spends $ 200.00 when purchasing at your store, what would be your first reaction if, out of the blue, he came up with a purchase of, let’s say… $ 10,000.00?
Don’t you want to celebrate? But it is better to take it slow. Very slow. Sometimes, the excitement of “selling a lot” and having a spectacular profit may blind us. And then, instead of that wonderful profit, you could have considerable loss. We recommend you to separate all orders with values that are very higher than your average ticket and review them carefully.
4. Attention with express freight!
Criminals are not willing to wait several business days for the arrival of a product: he wants to receive the purchase as fast as possible. Therefore, it is very likely that he choses the immediate delivery option (which is also the most expensive one, since he is not the one paying for it, anyway).
Ah, it is important to emphasize: we are not suggesting you to remove the express freight option from your store, only pay more attention when a client choses this delivery time. This is a very subtle filter, but it is capable of detecting a few illegitimate purchases.
5. Don’t trust coincidences
Pay a lot of attention to many orders arriving with repeated data, especially delivery address and contact phone data – after all, a criminal can have the data of thousands of credit cards, but he will surely not have several phone numbers or delivery addresses.
More than one order with the same contact phone in a short time frame? Check everything very carefully. Coincidences, in this context, do not exist for e-commerce: they are evidences.
Is that all?
Not necessarily. We can say that by following the five steps above, you are able to “stop” the bleeding from the credit card hits on your company, and can put the operation in safety mode while an anti-fraud solution is not implemented. This is the system that, in fact, will be able to stop transactions with a greater chance of becoming a chargeback.
Konduto can help you with this sixth step. Send us an e-mail at hi@konduto.com and tell us a bit more on your company’s risk analysis. Our innovative anti-fraud system will surely show which are the orders that are really suspicious and make your e-commerce operation be smoother, with fewer and fewer frauds.
