Credit Cards Online Information

AUSTIN, TEXAS - ClearCommerce has upgraded its online credit card fraud prevention software to better evaluate risks associated with accepting credit cards at e-commerce sites from shoppers outside the U.S.

There is no silver bullet to prevent online credit card fraud, but e-commerce merchants typically try to automate fraud detection and prevention through homegrown or vendor software that evaluates risk according to dozens of variables, such as checking stolen card lists and the customer purchasing history.

ClearCommerce has added what it calls "GeoLocator" to its fraud-prevention software, the ClearCommerce Engine, to pinpoint purchaser location and check the purchase order for known high-risk problems.

"Fraudsters always use free e-mail accounts,"says Julie Ferguson,vice president of emerging technologies and cofounder of ClearCommerce, which has 43,000 merchant users, including Sony and Apple Computer. GeoLocator adds a way for the ClearCommerce Engine, which runs on Windows NT or Unix behind the Web storefront, to identify the country where the purchasers browser is located by analyzing the purchaser's IP address, she noted.

Someone placing an order internationally using a U.S. delivery address presents a high risk of fraud,based on the experiences of several thousand ClearCommerce merchants, Ferguson says. ClearCommerce surveyed a sample 1,137 merchants, which provided insight on fraud patterns observed in 6 million Internet transactions over an 18-month period, to develop GeoLocator ClearCommerce rates each purchase order on a scale of 1 to 100 in terms of low or high risk, advising rejecting or acceptance by the merchant.

# posted by Medical Information : 1:48 AM