According to The Union Ledger, two New York men were arrested this Monday and charged with credit card fraud. Police were called to the scene after multiple managers in Tilton called in to report that two men were attempting to make large purchases at stores with cards that seemed to either be invalid or counterfeit.
Upon examination, the cards were revealed to be counterfeit, and police found several more illegitimate cards in their possession. The cards were relying on stolen identities and false credit information. They were both charged with felony organized retail crime, which can carry a jail term of over a year.
Fraud: Extremely Costly for Businesses Everywhere
Credit card fraud remains a major problem for many businesses, costing more than $8 billion every year. Sometimes credit card companies are picking up this cost, but sometimes it?s small businesses who are left hanging when people attempt to rip off the system. Luckily, there are a few ways that businesses can try to counteract the impact of fraud.
How Can We Prevent Fraud?
One way merchants can protect their services is through chargeback protection. Many third party companies offer assistance with gateway services. This means that companies are not left hanging, because there is an automatic verification process that takes place that helps to distinguish between legitimate purchases and someone using stolen information. It’s important to do this especially for “card not present” transactions (transactions taking place online or over the phone).
The increased use of chips on credit cards will also hopefully deter fraud; it will likely be several years, though, before the majority of merchants are able to catch on to this. In the meantime, it?s important that companies do their part to help prevent fraud from occurring. This isn?t important simply for ensuring that merchants aren?t ripped off, after all. It?s also important for ensuring that consumers trust the companies they?re ordering from, even in card not present situations.
The Target Breach that took place at the end of 2014 was shocking because such a large company experienced a data breach; the subsequent fall out of this happening included the loss of millions of dollars as consumers took their business elsewhere during the holiday season, or decided to pay for everything in cash (consumers will typically spend less money while paying in cash, as opposed to card).
