Reducing fraud in your online store

From Spiffy Stores Knowledge Base

You often read in the news that consumers are worried about the security of their details when ordering online. In reality, it is not the consumers who need to worry, but the online store owners.

If you're a consumer, the chance of your credit card number being intercepted as it travels over the Internet is extremely small. But if you are a merchant running your own ecommerce store, the chance of receiving orders with stolen credit card numbers is significant.

Sites selling things like watches, cameras, and computer hardware are most likely to get fraud orders. But any store can get them. We've seen fraudulent orders for teddy bears!

Spiffy Stores provides you with warnings on your "View order" page when we spot orders that are part of suspicious patterns. No software or other fraud detection tool can catch all potentially fraudulent orders however. Ultimately, it is always the merchant's responsibility to check orders before shipping.

We do offer an add-on to your store that can assist with detecting fraud. This is a service provided by MaxMind, a well known fraud detection service. This is available in the Accounts > Add-ons section of your store's admin.

Should you receive a fraudulent order, we'll happily provide you with a credit for the transaction fee. To request this, please email us at support@spiffystores.com.au providing us with the following information;

  • Your store name
  • The order number
  • The amount of the order
  • Whether or not we should re-stock the store's inventory with the items from the order.

There are no fees from us for refunding an order, but there may be fees from your payment provider.

If you suspect that you're a victim of fraud, you can file a complaint. Contact the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and file a complaint against an individual.