Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

hi everybody , I just launched a new webstore 15 days ago ( www.dealzusa.com) , I got about 30 orders , 25 of these orders are fraud, all of them are IPOD`s buyers, and they pay 65.00 for overnight shipping , I`m so discourged and I`m already thinking of shutting down the website , I keep thinking what if the other 5 orders that I already processed are fraud .

how do you guys deal with it , what kind of precautions you guys do before accpeting orders , I`m currently using paypal pro for credit card processing , ,,,, I`m so disappointed , I`m an architect ( graduated from a forigen country) and I`m thinking of getting back to work.

I had to remove all the iPods I have , expect for the Ipod shuffle which is very cheap.

hi everybody , I just launched a new webstore 15 days ago ( www.dealzusa.com) , I got about 30 orders , 25 of these orders are fraud, all of them are IPOD`s buyers, and they pay 65.00 for overnight shipping , I`m so discourged and I`m already thinking of shutting down the website , I keep thinking what if the other 5 orders that I already processed are fraud .

how do you guys deal with it , what kind of precautions you guys do before accpeting orders , I`m currently using paypal pro for credit card processing , ,,,, I`m so disappointed , I`m an architect  and I`m thinking of getting back to work.

I had to remove all the iPods exept for the ipod shuffle which is very cheap.

any advice

First of all Rania,
Sorry to disappoint you but that is just the nature of business, and dealing with Online stores. Fraud!, Well how do you stop fraud from happening? Well, don`t we all wish is was that simple?
Reality; No!!! you do not need to shut your store down, and call it quits... First of all because you are an entreprenuer, and you should be aware of all that: scams, lies, and fraud all come with the territory of an online store... 
What you need to do is, slow down a little... I know you are eager to make your first sale, photo copy the check / reciept and put it on a plaque so it can remind you along the way that, that was your first sale.. My advise is do what I tell my customers, Call and verify the order, Wait till the funds clear, on your policy add "All sales are final"... Don`t ship the item until the funds clear.. Most of all Call to verify the address. billing information, and Credit Card Billing address.
Drop Pay Pal... what you need is a credit card processor that checks CC`s in real time and check for fraudulent transactions.


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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

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Don`t be discouraged. I used to own digitalblare.com and we sold 65k a month of electronics and 15k of it was fruad. I learned my lesson. Don`t take credit card orders that you have to be responsible for. My suggestion to you is start using PayPal for you shopping cart solution, so they can take care of the fruad for you and you will not be reliable for those purchases. I hope this helps...

Some precautions:

1. Never accept orders using free webmail accounts (i.e hotmail, yahoo!, etc)
2. Never ship to post boxes or anywhere people can have stuff sent for collecting later
3. Pay extra attention to first time orders using your fastest shipping option. People with stolen credit cards use this so the products arrive before you find out the card was stolen.
4. Pay extra attention to overseas orders.

What can you do? If you think the transaction is suspicious then:

1. Call the customer
2. Check with your bank and their bank
3. Hold the order for a few days (tell them you just ran out of stock)

Perhaps the most creative solution is to validate each new credit card by depositing two small amounts on to it. The real owner can get a statement telling them what the two values were. When they tell you what the values are you can process the order.

If you`re still suspicious then ask them to send you payment via another method or refuse to process the order (it beats loosing $$`s).

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Blog - http://www.buggy.id.au/