Country Blacklist

Credit Cards and whom to trust

[Lisa]

I remember seeing a list around here of bad countries. Countries that have higher then normal amounts of fraud. Can someone point out where that list is.

Thanks

[deejay]

I haven't seen one here at WebmasterWorld yet... but Paypal has a list of countries it currently covers, supposedly based primarily on the fraud risk.

[chiyo]

Are you sure deejay? I thought Paypal's listing is based on pragmatic considerations re international transfer and credit card regulations as well as security concerns. A country not appearing on the list could be due to either the nature of agreements in between banks and central banks on transfers (usually too much regulation!) or security (too little security or regulation!). Malaysia for example, which is not on the list, has some regulations in place that make international transfers more difficult than other places.

[deejay]

You could well be right chiyo, and that probably makes more sense.... it's been a very long day. :)

I had read recently that it is based primarily on fraud risk, but damned if I can remember where I read it right now (wasn't Paypal themselves).

[Crazy_Fool]

WorldPay lists the top 12 countries from which the greatest proportion of fraud originiates (in order of risk) as:
1 - Ukraine
2 - Indonesia
3 - FRO Yugoslavia
4 - Lithuania
5 - Egypt
6 - Romania
7 - Bulgaria
8 - Turkey
9 - Russia
10 - Pakistan
11 - Malaysia
12 - Israel

[Marcia]

It would be good to credit the source, and it seems WorldPay has a very informative section about Fraud Prevention [worldpay.com].

[Smiley]

Indonesia is the worst IMO!

[ScottM]

From Americart FAQ [cartserver.com]:

Geographical Tips:

The vast majority of orders from the following countries are FRAUDULENT:

Romania
Indonesia
Singapore
Ghana (a rising star of fraud!)
Nigeria
Austria
Hungary
Belarus
Bulgaria
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Slovak Republic
Ukraine
Russia
Yugoslavia
Macedonia
Phillipines
Thailand
Malaysia

[chiyo]

Singapore! wow that's a surprise from a country that ranks in the top 5 for lack of corruption and better than US and is one of the most highly regulated and affluent countries in the world. Guess they have some pretty smart hackers as well!

[gsx]

Uganda is a rising star :(

One way I have checked for potential fraud levels is to the get old fashioned atlas out. You will see patterns from the top 20 or so fraud countries. You will see they are in batches of areas and from that you can determine fraud level estimations on surrounding countries.

[c3oc3o]

Majority of orders from Austria, a EU member and the country with the eighth-highest per capita Gross Income in the world (according to the World Bank), fraudulant? That's ridiculous.

[Intimi]

>Indonesia
NOT ONE transaction (except one for an American customer who travels a lot) was OK. Including Indonesia in your country list is a pest, but omitting it can be even worse: we traced people checking out calculated credit card numbers. Visa/Mastercard do hardly anything to stop this. A couple of hints:

- If a shipping address sounds a bit wacko, try to obtain the IP address and do a reverse DNS lookup. (you mostly find where the ISP of the order was based)
- If you 're not sure the shipping location is in the country they say, check out sites like maporama.com or mapquest.com
- You can also check phone numbers on sites like switchboard.com
- Never ship to customer with bouncing e-mail addresses

Our e-commerce checks the IP address of the customer against blacklisted IP ranges. Everytime something suspicious comes out, we add the IP (first 3 numbers) to the blacklist. This appears a much better way than omitting "Indonesia", "Romania",... from the country list. Since we do this, attempts from Indonesia have diminished from five per day to one in a month.

>Singapore
Sometimes Indonesia-based cybercriminals fill out "Singapore" in the address form to bypass a block. Most Europeans or Americans do not know much of the indonesian geography, but Singapore mail and carrier personnel do, so your package comes where they want it. Check village names and countries at www.maporama.com

>Austria
We never had fraudulent transactions from there ?
Same theory as above with neighboring countries ?

[Ross]

Since we do this, attempts from Indonesia have diminished from five per day to one in a month.

They've all arrived on our site instead !.

We also had a similar thing with the Indonesia / Malaysia country switch. We received an order from Yugoslavia and politely replied that we were sorry but don't ship to that country. Next day we received the same order, to the same address, but this time the country was Greece !. Guess what...we didn't ship to Greece that day either !.

[heini]

So much for the worldwideweb, eh?

On the upside this opens a wide window of opportunity to regional and local online sellers.
US shops not shipping to Austria? This is _good_ news for online shops in Germany ;)

US shops not shipping to Singapur? Great news for online shops in Hongkong!