Merchant Services Fraud Prevention

Fraudulent credit card transactions can create financial liability and tarnish the reputation of a business. With merchant services fraud prevention strategies in place, you can increase the security of point of sales devices and reduce the risk of credits being submitted that do not reflect bona fide returns or reimbursements of earlier transactions.

How to protect your business

• Establish and maintain a policy that addresses information security for employees and contractors.
• Protect stored and sent data across networks using methods indicated in the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards.
• Process transactions using tokenization and encryption
• Assign a unique ID to each person with access to point-of-sale equipment and systems.
• Only use services and merchant equipment that have been certified as PCI Data Security Standards compliant by the credit card organizations.
• Maintain PCI compliance and complete annual Self-Assessment Questionnaire. To complete PCI DSS compliance call Clover^® Compliance at (866) 957-1807 or login to CloverSecurity.com.
• Install and maintain a secure network firewall to protect data across public networks.
• Regularly test security systems and processes.
• Destroy or purge all media containing obsolete transaction data with cardholder information.
• Utilize fraud prevention tools and services provided by software and processing solutions
• Install CAPTCHA to website to help protect against card enumerating and testing.
• Implement AVS and CVV code requirements for processing card-not-present or ecommerce transactions. Check your security settings to ensure address verification (AVS) is turned on if you have an online store.
• Utilize security solutions that offer additional layers of security for online credit/debit card transactions.

What to do if you suspect fraud

If your business experiences merchant services fraud, immediately contact First Data Merchant Services at (877) 273-8191.