Maybe credit card fraud?

[Dejay1788]

Good evening knowledgeable PH'ers.

Me and my partner run a small e-commerce business, we sell fairly low value items - £25 and under mostly so our average sale value is fairly low but we have a good mark up from it.

Over the last few weeks we've had a few sales from Indonesia. They are being flagged as a risk of fraud because the credit cards are issued from Australia, but the billing and shipping address is Indonesia. We have the info provided where the customer has placed an order from also.

The first was a small coastal village, so we thought perhaps a tourist or expat purchased from us so we shipped it. A week we've had a few more of these orders, all with Australian issued cards, shipped to Indonesia, but today's was sent to an industrial unit.

I know Indonesia is rife with card fraud so haven't dispatched the last few orders as they're all for about £50 each, all from different customers and shipped to different addresses.

It all just seems a little fishy and I'm hesitant to ship the goods. I'd like the sales, but I'm wondering about the risk of a charge back at some point due to fraud as we've never had this come up before.

Would you guys send the stock or just issue refunds and not worry about it?

[Simpo Two]

Aren't you supposed only to ship to the cardholder's address? I wouldn't touch them.

If it smells funny do you need the risk?

[Dejay1788]

Simpo Two said:

Aren't you supposed only to ship to the cardholder's address? I wouldn't touch them.

If it smells funny do you need the risk?

No, people often buy gifts and have them shipped directly to the recipient.

[Jaypayne]

Which payment gateway are you using?

Are the transactions secured with 3DS as this will alter where the liability sits and therefore chargeback risk.

I would talk to my payment gateway and see if they can assist. I would also investigate using a gateway with a fraud scoring capability.

[Dr Interceptor]

As above... it depends if the transactions are protected by 3D secure... if not, you're leaving yourself wide open.

[EskimoArapaho]

Indonesia is on the list of countries where my site says "thanks, but no thanks".

Please let us know how this turns out.

[Dejay1788]

Decision made - just refund the lot. Since the last post I had another 5 orders in 3 days from the same area, so it looks like fraud. They've tried to use cards from Canada, USA and Australia this time. I've made the decision just not ship to Indonesia any more. Looks like I'll get burned for £50 down the line but lesson learned.