Forum Moderators: buckworks
"Here is my checklist
2. Spelling and grammatical mistakes. (My English is also not very good ;))
Besides being old, clumsy, lazy and partially dyslexic, I have pfat pfingers and often hitt extrs ot the worng keu
5. Buyer provides a cell phone number
I don't even know my land line number (here in Thailand), and at numerous places where I have lived, I had to connect thriough a house line. Would you be suspicious if you were given a 6 digit number? Everywhere except Bangkok .. and cell phones.
6. Do a reverse phone number lookup to check the address and validity of the phone number.
I seriously doubt if you can do that for many foreign countries.
7. Generic sounding address [1515, Main Street]
Mine sounds even more obscure .. won't even bother to confuse the issue with it.
"For example, "billing address different from shipping address" is a sign of a fraudulent order."
Not necessarily. I often buy online and have the products shipped to a friend in Bangkok .. or the US when a friend brought back a digital camera for me.
All that being said, I realize that most online shops are looking for mainstream business from "developed" countries and from the local shipping area.
Also, you might be surprised to know that the requirements for merchant accounts in Thailand can be quite stringent.
If nothing else, I feel that it enforces that this *is* theft because there are those who think it's more permissible than shoplifting because the laws don't even seem to apply.
I take a rather different approach. My privacy statement specifically says that any email from Indonesia, Nigeria, Uganda, Ivory Coast and certain other countries will be treated as attempted fraud, and I reserve the right to publish details of all attempted fraudulent purchases. I have a special page for these, where I publish the email address, IP address and any other details (apart from CC numbers). Just yesterday I had a company in Canada send me a thank-you email because it helped them stop a fraudulent transaction. Those details are repeated on the contact information page with the email address too.
Don't forget that your privacy statement need not be 100% fluffy and nice, especially when it comes to fraudsters.
Another tip I've found while baiting these people is to ask for the issuing bank name for the card. Most fraudsters won't have that information. And secondly *always* check the originating IP address for mail claiming to be from "Singapore".
I'm from Indonesia, and very sad that Indonesia has very bad reputation on ecommerce world.
Some merchants refuse my orders just because I'm from Indonesia.
I suggest, espescially for order from Indonesia, the billing address/creditcards holder address, should match the delivery address. Using this way, it is imposible for fraudster to use other people creditcards, while still allow legitimate orders from Indonesia.
Regards,
Sjarief
I'm from Indonesia, and very sad that Indonesia has very bad reputation on ecommerce world.Some merchants refuse my orders just because I'm from Indonesia.
I suggest, espescially for order from Indonesia, the billing address/creditcards holder address, should match the delivery address. Using this way, it is imposible for fraudster to use other people creditcards, while still allow legitimate orders from Indonesia.
It is unfortunate, but for many retailers, shipping anything to Indonesia simply isn't worth the risk. It doesn't even matter if the shipping and billing addresses match, because they could both be faked.
That said, the only country I've had to completely cut off for some of my clients is Nigeria (the world's largest hotbed of fraud).
You need to be a little more selective about who to deal with in the country and, if serious about overseas business, that doesn't just apply to Indonesia. Going back to some more old fashioned credit checking would be a good starting point. Ask for and check bank references. For Indonesia I would insist that they have an account with a well known international bank like Citibank or Hong Kong Bank.
If an offshore card is being offered that's not necessarily a danger sign and may in fact be the opposite. If the card is for Hong Kong, Singapore or Australia it can work to your advantage. As mentioned above ask for a bank reference to be sent directly to you and if that lines up as positive together with matching addresses for the account holder "in Indonesia" then it's really quite safe.
The reason why many of business people have their credit cards in other countries is because of widespread distrust of the countries banking system. This made their credit cards worthless internationally. There is also a problem at times with inbound money transfers which go missing for days and that's why for example a Singapore bank account is better ...it's safer for transfers. The Singapore and Hong Kong Banks are actually very strict with approvals of any transactions. Charges to their Visa card holders are pattern matched to normal behavior and buying locations and anything in the least out of order gets rejected pronto. Sometimes it's a bit overboard actually.
If the stuff you are shipping is really big dollars, talk to your bank about alternative payment proceedures like a sight draft or irrevocable letter of credit. These require the payer to deposit the money with your bank's counterpart in Indonesia, prior to shipment of the goods. Within the country most things are still paid for by cash and there are not many credit facilities available. Consequently, anybody running a bona fide business will be able to send you cash.
<snip>
Ya, I will get right on that.
[edited by: lorax at 5:08 pm (utc) on Jan. 17, 2005]
[edit reason] Deleted notes [/edit]
- Grant
There are huge amounts of fraud here, but also huge pools of wealthy people, both locals and expats. My personal opinion is that you need to use some subtlety in your screenings of potential customers from this country. By simply refusing all orders from Indonesia (as a number of posters have suggested) you risk hurling out the baby with the bathwater.
That being said, credit card details (including security code) are sold here by bank staff for a few dollars a time, internet cafes are set up to openly allow fraud (daily rolling over of IP's), and there is basically no law enforcement here.
Am I fraudster or wealthy expat? You decide ...
Brunei Darussalam - does it feed direct to Indonesia
No, it is a separate country. GDP per person about the same as Portugal and roughly 6 times that of Indonesia. With a population of 350,000, it's not a terribly exciting market opportunity.
The trick here was that the sender was using a well-known free email service that masks the originating IP. Even if I had the products (it's an affiliate site, so I don't) it's hard to prove that it *is* fraud, except that this particular trick I've seen before so my gut feeling is that it's definitely fraud.
I think the bottom line is that somewhere you need to have a real IP address that matches the stated location of the potential buyer. This particular free email service is notorious for masking it, which is of no help whatsoever.
He asked if I could accept a credit card and ship to Nigeria - then listed several high end product categories that he was interested in purchasing, ie televisions, computers, etc.
The info site has nothing to do with consumer goods at all. I guess he's just emailing any site he can find, til he gets a willing participant.
Looks like you guys won't be getting any of my money in the near future, despite my being a (relatively) wealthy expat with money to spend and not much to buy on this little sandy island in Indonesia.There are huge amounts of fraud here, but also huge pools of wealthy people, both locals and expats. My personal opinion is that you need to use some subtlety in your screenings of potential customers from this country. By simply refusing all orders from Indonesia (as a number of posters have suggested) you risk hurling out the baby with the bathwater.
That being said, credit card details (including security code) are sold here by bank staff for a few dollars a time, internet cafes are set up to openly allow fraud (daily rolling over of IP's), and there is basically no law enforcement here.
Am I fraudster or wealthy expat? You decide ...
Yeah, but what's the percentage of fraud orders vs legitimate ones from Indonesia? Let's conservatively say 1 in 1000 is legit (Nigeria would be about 1 in 10,000). Will the money you make from the 1 legit order offset the... conservatively, lets say 5 fraudulent ones... that make it through? I think not. Same reason why a pizza delivery place doesn't want to deliver to a high-crime neighborhood. The risks (and actual losses) far outweight the benefits.
Online fraud prevention is really very simple for the average web retailer who sells low risk products.
Big deal if I lose two sales a year to wealthy, honest Indonesians. They should criticize their countrymen and government, not me for doing what I have to do.
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Aren't there any commerce website inside Indonesia and Nigeria?
If, for some reason a savvy commerce site wants to add those places, the drop down form can be easily edited.
