Mandatory email address association with credit card.

Wouldn't it virtually eliminate online fraud?

[dmorison]

Just thinking out loud here; but wouldn't making it manadatory to associate an email address with your credit card if you wished to make online purchases virtually wipe out online credit card fraud?

Instead of all these fancy verification codes and security digits which are just putting more hoops in the way of customers, why not just have a simple email address that you provide to your card issuer just as you have to provide your physical address.

If this were in place...

a) every online transaction could generate a transaction report email that would enable you to very quickly alert your card issuer if there has been a fraudulent transaction.

b) the card's email address can be safely communicated to merchants offering digital products; who can then deliver passwords; download URLs or even the content itself to and only to that card's registered email address.

Many categories of digital products are considered high risk by the card issuers; simply because a fraudster can pay for and receive the digital goods instantly without the cardholder ever being aware of the fraud - especially true of low value transactions which I'm sure make up the majority of digitally delivered product purchases.

It just seems such a simple solution. Am I missing something?

[Corey Bryant]

Personally - I would not use the service. When I order something, or sign up for something, I use a particular email address associated to that web site.

For example, my email address on this board is [e-mail] - this way if I get an email address to [e-mail] and it is not form this site, I know their database might have been compromised or they sold my information possibly.

Plus it helps with all the phishing emails. None of them are addressed to my Paypal email

-Corey

[LifeinAsia]

a) every online transaction could generate a transaction report email that would enable you to very quickly alert your card issuer if there has been a fraudulent transaction.

In general this might work, but there are several exceptions:
1) Not if the alert e-mail got caught in a SPAM filter
2) Not if the account was over its limit and all new messages bounded
3) Not if you're on vacation and don't check your e-mail until you get back a week after the card was stolen

b) the card's email address can be safely communicated to merchants offering digital products; who can then deliver passwords; download URLs or even the content itself to and only to that card's registered email address.

Again, in general this might work. But what if the person needs it delivered to a different e-mail address? For example, bought a 20 meg software file to download, but the account has a 5 meg max.

And, of course, the #1 reason why this wouldn't work (drum roll), believe it or not, not everyone has an e-mail address.

However, I will agree that this is great OPTIONAL feature that shouldn't be too difficult for issuing banks to implement. At least for the generated e-mail for each transaction.

[dmorison]

I take your points; however to counter;

But what if the person needs it delivered to a different e-mail address? For example, bought a 20 meg software file to download, but the account has a 5 meg max.

It's extremely rare for a multi-megabyte digital product to be delivered by email; it's just too difficult with several different problem areas. In this instance; this is where the product would be delivered from a password protected download area and the customers' access details sent to (and only to) the credit card's associated email address.

And, of course, the #1 reason why this wouldn't work (drum roll), believe it or not, not everyone has an e-mail address.

I think this is unlikely enough to be a non-issue; in fact, of all the payment gateways that I am familiar with an email address is a required field. The problem is it can be any old email address!

However, I will agree that this is great OPTIONAL feature that shouldn't be too difficult for issuing banks to implement. At least for the generated e-mail for each transaction.

Agreed - and infact I spent a while today looking around but couldn't find any card issuer offering such a service.

[LifeinAsia]

I think this is unlikely enough to be a non-issue; in fact, of all the payment gateways that I am familiar with an email address is a required field.

Um, trust me, there are still millions of people out there without e-mail addresses, and many of them have and use credit cards.
Some online payment gateways may require an e-mail address, but not all of them require it to be the customer's. Also, there are lots of offline merchants who aren't using online payment gateways (I'm not required to give an e-mail address to use a credit card in a Target store, for example).