Fraudulent Transactions

What a difficult concept to grasp! People, and many of them, are taking stolen credit card information and placing orders all over for merchandise. That might be believable, but what is difficult is that NO ONE CARES: No Authorities, No Banks, No Credit Card Companies, No Merchant Provider, No one. Except of course the small business owner that loses merchandise and money from these fraudulent purchases (theft).

Sometimes the credit card issuer notices these unauthorized transactions minutes after authorizing a transaction (after authorizing the theft). Visa, Master Card, Discover etc have great filters that see irregular activity. These Card Issuers (Banks) jump on the phone with the actual card holder. Notify them of the unauthorized activity and quickly shut down the card. Absolutely no effort at all made to actually notify the vendor (who is also their customer). Most fraudulent transactions could be avoided with this small effort from the banks. One call from the card issuing bank to notify the merchant that 'certain certain' transaction authorized on your ecommerce site or other venue is in fact UNauthorized and should not be processed would save businesses millions! Of course some transactions would already be processed BUT the majority could be stopped, and no reward to the thief.

The banks assume no liability at all for these transactions. They do not at all care about the thief or the business's loss. They simply remove the funds paid for the merchandise from the vendor (business) in the form of a chargeback.

AHHH! If only the Banks had the slightest liability for fraudulent transactions, would us small and big businesses reap major rewards being able to stop losses. Just think even if they had to pay pennies on the dollar for authorization numbers that turn up as Not Authorized transactions then business for sure would get a courtesy call. As it is now the small business finds out around a month later when when the card issuer charges back our bank account for the transaction.

Also, those very few card holders that 'change their mind' and prefer not to pay their bill by filing a non-authorized credit card claim would get a better investigation from these banks. Even the most obvious cases are hard to win: I lost one on a part that was delivered to the card holders correct address and signed by the card holder.

I like, no I love protections for credit card holders. But there needs to be a little balance with just a little protection for business.

I have searched far and wide for a set of numbers to Card Issuers so I could simply call and ask VISA or Discover or Master Card 'Hey, I have this transaction that you have approved, but can you double check with Card Holder (Hopefully same as customer) that it is authorized?'

I have had luck doing this. Making calls all day long, finding the correct number, and department and such, but I have saved considerable amounts on catching fraud before it's too late.

So here's my short list: Please add helpful #'s if you have them

VISA: 800-847-2750
Option #1 Verify Address for USA issued cards.
Option #2 Find Out What Bank issued the Card and their phone #. This one is very helpful as you can contact the card issuing bank and they can contact the card holder to verify the activity (that your sell was actually authorized - Do not trust authorization #'s).

    Visa Cards (maybe other cards) Issued By Wells Fargo
    Phone # that the above Option #2 gives 866-229-6633 BUT
    Phone # to actually call 800-642-4720 (Credit Card Services) and ask for representative.
    Our first shot at this the representative was in no way interested in
    helping us verify the authorization, the address and even said
    she would NOT verify the phone number she had on file against the phone
    number used on the order.

    Visa Cards Issued By Nordea Bank (Card starts 400288)
    Phone # +44 4791-506001 (Norway)
    Anybody try to confirm any transaction here with any luck?
    The transaction actually showed up as a domestic card
    without any way to verify address.     Please share any experience with this one.



DISCOVER CARD: 800-347-4996
Discover Card's Fraud Prevention
Awesome help and service from Thomas in Ohio !! Thank You



MASTERCARD: 800-622-7747
Seems to be Mastercard's main #
Very many options including finding card issuing bank and address verification.

    Mastercards (maybe other cards) Issued By MLB (Major League Baseball)
    Phone # that the above gives 800-421-2110     Immediately help with great service (Thanks Julio!).
     Verified all information and put me on hold to attempt to
     contact their cardholder to verify authorization.


Useful Links
Database of Banks _ Plug in the first 6 numbers of the Credit/ Debit card and find out the issuing bank
This can help flag fraudulent transactions. I just received an order for 'Select Shipping' to a freight forwarding service in Miami. But the card was issued by a U.S. Chase bank. Since nothing is adding up comfortably with this transaction, it is now flagged as fraudulent.