Preventing fraud

We do everything we can to minimise the risk of fraud to you and your business. You must also ensure you follow all reasonable procedures to protect yourself and your customers from fraud or criminal activity. If you suspect any suspicious activity or behaviour, you should not attempt to process a payment.

Providing you adhere to the terms and conditions and manage your security risks effectively, you should not encounter any problems.

Card reader payments

For any payments taken using the card reader, we encourage the use of Chip & PIN. This virtually eliminates the risk associated with skimming, confirms that you have the true cardholder in front of you and means the liability lies with the customer. When using Chip & Signature the responsibilities, including confirming the card belongs to the person that presented it, lie with the merchant.

It is your responsibility, as a seller, to authenticate the customer's card. You should check these conditions:

• The cardholder’s signature is on the back of the card
• The cardholder’s signature matches that on the back of their card
• The card has not expired
• The card has not be altered or modified
• The card is one of the accepted card types

If any of the these conditions are not met, the card is not an acceptable means of payment.

For any swiped payments, you need to ensure the cardholder signs a copy of the receipt or invoice. You may want to check the cardholder’s ID to ensure it matches the name of the card for additional security.

Other payments

If you take payments over the phone, if you charge your customers automatically or if your customer pays for their invoice online, you will need to know who you are selling to.

As you cannot physically verify the customer, you should follow these tips:

• Obtain card details - card number, cardholder name and billing address
• Get proof you delivered the product or service - get your customer to sign a receipt or invoice
• Verify your customer - check their business (if applicable) and the cardholder’s ID
• Match the billing and delivery addresses (if applicable)

If you cannot verify this information, you should not accept the payment.

If your customer pays an invoice online, we run 3D secure checks to ensure it it the actual cardholder making the payment.