jeffweico | 04-23-2016 03:09 PM | Re: Stripe account closed Some products attract more fraud than others. Cable boxes fall into that category. You already know the person buying one is not a straight shooter. He is willing to rip off the cable companies. Not that I have any love for the cable companies, but you get what I mean.
Super-popular stuff is also a risk, like those hoverboards that sold like crazy during Christmas. Stripe lost hundreds of thousands (and maybe even millions) on them due to chargebacks. Many people buying them were using stolen credit cards. Why? Because they can easily sell them for a decent amount of cash. Credit card thieves are always looking for a way to "cash out" their stolen cards and unsuspecting small retailers are always a juicy target.
Stripe has almost NO fraud prevention measures built in the way that PayPal does. They do have SOME, but very few. They must find it cheaper to close the merchant accounts that attract the problems rather than stop the fraud on the front end.
So it is up to YOU to stop the fraud. Always use AVS verification and ONLY ship to that address. Even when you get the email using ten creative (or heartbreaking) reasons why they want you to ship it somewhere else. Yes, you will lose sales that way. But at least if it turns out the items were being bought with stolen credit cards, you will most likely get your merchandise back.
Don't be afraid to use whitepages.com and other such sites to check addresses yourself. You are NOT violating anyone's privacy by doing so. And if ANYTHING makes you uncomfortable with an order, just cancel it.
Bricks and mortar merchants rarely have to worry about this. If someone walks into Best Buy and uses a stolen card to buy a TV, the bank will cover Best Buy so they do not take a loss. That protection does not exist for online retailers. We have to eat the fraudulent charges. So you have to protect yourself to the best of your ability. And no matter what you do, you will STILL get hit with some fraudulent charges. That is just reality.
And for some industries, the rates of fraud are much higher. Cable descramblers, "legal high" drugs, drug paraphernalia dealers, get rick quick vendors, mobile phone refills, discounted electronics dealers, online gambling, e-currency converters, knock-off dealers, counterfeit dealers, forex trading and any category of retailer actively selling the latest "fad" products... All of these things (and more) have very high rates of fraud. |