Chargeback prevention is front of mind for many in today’s environment of taking transactions online and over the phone. Chargebacks can cost you time, energy, and most importantly for any business, money. Through a series of blogs, we hope to educate you to information and tools you can use to protect your business.

How many times have you purchased something online? We’ve all at some point or another bought something online and had to enter a card number. The next step? Putting in that little 3 or 4 digit security code – but why do we do it? As the name suggests, the security code is a tool used to prevent people who may have stolen credit card information from making a purchase. Since these codes exist only physically on the card, fraudsters who don’t physically have possession of the card cannot complete a purchase from a merchant who requires it. The problem is, not all merchants demand their customers enter this code, and this is where some chargebacks can occur.

Whether you know it as the Card Security Code (CSC), Card Verification Value (CVV), or Card Verification Code (CVC), these seemingly insignificant numbers play a huge role in protecting the merchant from fraudulent purchases. Only the person holding the card has access to this CVV code. By requiring anyone who performs a card not present (CNP) transaction through your company to enter the CVV code, you can greatly reduce the risk of accepting a fraudulent purchase from someone who is using a stolen credit card #, and therefore lower the likelihood of your business needing to refund that money to the person who really owns that card. And the double whammy in this situation is that most of the time the product has already left the store and its value is lost as well.

Pairing CVV code with address verification in Chapter 2 will do even more to prevent fraud. If you’d like to learn more about the ways you can improve the ways your business can protect against chargebacks, give Electronic Money Company a call today at 1-866-898-7618.