A partial scam involves concealed or altered information about the prices, fees, charges, features and the description overall. The most common partial scam is the ‘hidden fee’ scam. The hidden fee scam is the concealment of some fees, rates and extra charges (usually applied by the processing bank), which then suddenly pop up, or remain hidden and unaccounted for until the e-Commerce merchant receives the bill from the processing bank. Some credit card processing companies do not provide a full price list. A full price list should have, at least, …

Photo by Don Hankins
Beware Visa’s warnings
Visa Inc. last week sent a fraud alert to banks and payment processors warning them to look out for a “large batch settlement fraud scheme” involving a merchant account in East Europe. That alert is focusing renewed attention on a longstanding need for banks to tighten up the standards for authorizing merchants who accept credit and debit card payments.
Batch settlement fraud schemes – What are they?
Batch settlements refer to the common practice where merchants store all authorized payment card transactions that occur during a day …

Image by Pasquale D’Silva
The age of social networking is more than upon us-it is becoming ingrained in us. Many of us are so addicted that we can hardly get out of bed before we begin checking to see status updates on Facebook and Twitter.
Reconnecting with old friends and staying in touch with current ones are great reasons to use social networks-but what about using them to market your business?
The fact is, those same networks that you are using to share pictures and reminisce about old times can be great sources …

To enable your business to accept credit cards online, and to process transactions immediately, you need to have access to a merchant account. It is an easy, cost-effective way to process credit cards online. Hence, the first step is to get a merchant account, a service offered by nine banks – known as acquiring banks. Also there are processors that currently offer Internet merchant accounts. There would be nothing better than your existing bank offering merchant account services, but you may approach any other bank for the same as well.

Today, …

Although we may never see a cashless society, many businesses today could not stay in business without accepting credit cards. In fact, credit cards are so commonly used by consumers, businesses and government agencies, that credit card purchases may account for 65 to 100% of many companies’ sales.

For the most part, that’s good news for merchants and services providers. Credit card customers often spend more than their cash-wielding counterparts, and merchants can capture sales from internet and mail order customers immediately — instead of hoping the customer actually does mail …

We’ve gotten some emails about our post yesterday and we thought it’d be great to offer our readers even more methods to prevent credit card fraud for online merchants. Some friends who are seasoned online merchants have even stepped forward to let us in on common sense techniques to stop fraudulent transactions from hurting their business. Here are 5 effective tips that can help you prevent credit card fraud.
Tip 1: It pays to be suspicious
Be vigilant is scanning each order and watch out for information that may raise warning bells. …

In a recent survey, online merchants revealed that they are most worried about credit card fraud in the e-Commerce business. They expressed anxiety over their apparent vulnerability to fraudsters, and feel that they are spending too much time reviewing orders to spot cases of fraud, when they could have used the time to improve other aspects of their business. Other than the usual address verification system (AVS), most merchants are seeking ways to expedite credit card fraud detection, and not just discriminate against common warning signs like expedited shipping and …

Photo used under Creative Commons from ijustine.
Previously we’ve talked about how other mobile payment solutions will measure up to Square in the ongoing mobile payment processing war. However, with the recent news that the service as well as the accompanying card reader will only cost a mere $1 to obtain fills us with great excitement as we are looking at what is potentially a great payment processing solution! By plugging in a small square card reader gadget slightly bigger than an adult’s thumb into the iPhone, iPad or Android devices, …

New Visa Innovation: Contactless Mobile Payments Via iPhone
How many times have you told  yourself how indispensable your iPhone is? Or how you can’t live without it? When it comes to fun and productivity, this gadget can definitely improve your life and entertain you at the same time. Now, there’s another reason why you can’t afford to lose your iPhone or let it out of your sight, because Visa is going high-tech by offering a mobile payment solution that lets iPhone users make purchases with a wave of their mobile devices. …

It cannot be denied that a credit card is a convenient tool for both consumers and merchants but if you put yourself in a merchant’s shoes, you will find that the credit card processing fees that he has to pay may be slowly killing him without you realizing it. Most merchants lament the fact that they are charged up to 2.5% yearly in credit card processing fees. If you deduct that from the amount your business makes, that’s probably a huge chunk that amounts to tens of thousands of dollars! …