Credit Card Authorizing Programs

[TPodlesak]

I know this is more of an accounting issue, but I am hoping someone will have some suggestions.

The CSR takes an order, authorizes the card at the end of the order. Once the order is booked, accounting uses a program to capture the customer information. We do a lot of business with international customers using credit cards. In the last month, we have processed several stolen credit cards from international customers and our authorization program did not alert us.

Question – does your system capture the money at the time the order is placed? Does your program alert you when it has an error with numbers or expiration dates? Should this be an accounting issue, IS issue or customer service issue?

Can you offer some authorization programs to review?

[mnuttelman]

We authorize and charge all international orders prior to shipment. If the agent notes "suspicious" actvity -

New customer, no payment history,
· Purchase from underdeveloped country,
· Web order, incomplete information,
· Different ship to/bill to addresses,

· Free e-mail addresses (@hotmail, @yahoo),
· Personal email addresses on a business order,
· Little or no understanding of the products purchased,
· Lack of professionalism or poor telephone skills (barking dogs/crying children in the background),
· Individuals using business names with residential addresses, or
· Aggressive behavior - people that call late in the day and need everything right now....

>>>we "do a Code 10" by calling our merchant card providers "fraud" hotline to see if the card is valid (not stolen).