Picture this scenario: You’ve just sold a product through your online shop and shipped it to the customer.
The customer receives the product but says he’s never ordered it – and refuses the credit card charge.
The transaction is reversed and you don’t receive your money.
On the top of all this, you have to pay for the transport of the order to the customer and back – and your bank might charge a fee for the reverse transaction.
This is all part of online payment fraud, which represented $USD 700 million in 2001.
Yet, total online sales each year continue to surge and now represent $USD 61.8 billion, says Bahram Boutorabi, CEO/CTO of Australian Technology Showcase member company Gpayments. And the highest yearly growth rate is 89 per cent in Asia Pacific.
Speakers at a seminar at the Australian Technology Showcase exhibition in Sydney in April explained that, in an attempt to reduce such global Internet fraud, Visa International has implemented a secure system which verifies online the identity of the purchaser and then guarantees payment to the merchant.
The ‘Verified by Visa’ process presents added security for everybody, said Jackie Brian, National E-Commerce Manager at Visa International.
Cardholders’ details are securely transmitted and merchants are guaranteed payment. The easily implemented system requires the user to register with a secret code.
This secret code will be asked of the user every time he or she makes a purchase. The purchase will not be processed unless the code is correct. All the merchant will need to do is to install plug-in software to effect the verification.
Merchants will be required to install the plug-in and use the ‘Verified by Visa’ by 1 April 2003.
Award wining Gpayments is the first and only company in the Asia Pacific region that offers a complete product range supporting the ‘Verified by Visa’ system as well as another system implemented by Mastercard – Secure Payment Application (SPA), Mr Boutorabi said.
For more information on ‘Verified by Visa’ or Gpayments solutions contact:
Jackie Brian
E-Commerce Manager
Visa International
Tel 02 9256 2424
Email: jbrian@visa.com
Bahram Boutorabi
CEO/CTO
Creative Digital Technology PTY LTD (GPayments)
Tel 02 9453 5411
Email. Bahram@creative.com.au