8 Tips To Prevent Online Shopping Scam

When it comes to the eCommerce industry, besides its significant benefits to the modern consuming world, fraud is one of the most complicated problems for every retailer and customer. Every online shop owner is pouring time and effort on finding solutions to effectively prevent online shopping scam.

In this article, we would like to come across some tips modern businesses can apply to protect their stores and customers.

Maintain PCI compliance

Any e-commerce company that accepts credit card payments must adhere to Payment Card Industry (PCI) protection regulations. PCI standards are created and managed by the  PCI Security Standards Council with the aim of ensuring the security of credit card payments.  In other words, transactions made by credit cards will be safer if retailers follow these standards. Or else, cybercriminals will have more chances to attack your online stores and steal money or data from the sales process. 

Examine your stores to timely identify suspicious activities

It is a must that eCommerce store owners regularly monitor their online sales process for red flags, for example inconsistent billing and shipping information. Retailers can also adopt some helpful tools to track for customer IP addresses and stay alert if that area is usually reported with fraudsters.

Use HTTPS

HTTPS is the primary protocol that is used to encrypt data between web browsers and online stores. Using HTTPS enables online businesses to prevent transactions from being broadcast, which may bring hackers more chances to abuse customer information. 

Create backlists

A blacklist is a database focused on the idea that past experiences will predict future fraud. Once the illegal activity is detected, the relevant transaction details are added to a blacklist. All subsequent transactions are compared to that list. Afterward, if a new order is made using those data, it is immediately declined.

Use an Address Verification Service (AVS)

AVS is usually used with the aim of detecting suspicious credit card transactions in order to timely prevent fraud. To illustrate, the AVS will check the address of the card user and compare with the one recorded by the issuing bank. This process happens when the online store requests authorization of credit card payments. And if the two addresses are different, the transaction request will immediately be declined. 

Adopt anti-fraud solution

Nowadays, there are various solutions at different prices that support eCommerce businesses to detect and prevent fraud. They can be integrated into the online stores and start identifying fraudulent transactions by using IP, email address, etc. When reporting any suspicious activity, these solutions will carefully examine the problems and automatically discard the transaction if necessary. 

Do not collect too much sensitive information

Another method to protect online stores, as well as customers, is minimizing the amount of customer information in the data warehouse. Store owners should try to collect and store as little customer private information as possible. Hence, hackers can not obtain their important information and use it for the wrong purposes. 

Protect privacy on social media

Every website on the internet, including social media sites, has their privacy policies. It is essential that online buyers read and consider those privacy terms of every social media site before signing up for an account. 

Bottom line,

Along with the increasing popularity of eCommerce shopping, the number of cyber-attacks has also become more and more sophisticated. Modern online store owners should bear in mind that fraudsters may create huge impacts on your business. Hence, understanding possible fraud, as well as solutions, is one of the most crucial factors that prevent online shopping scam and develop the business in the future. If you are interested in knowledge related to the eCommerce retail industry, don’t forget to follow us!