Opening up a merchant account is crucial to your business’s success as it provides you with credit card processing capability. But while accepting credit cards offers a myriad of benefits, there exist potential pitfalls when accepting your customers’ credit card payments. Here are a few considerations that you need to be aware of when you’ve got your merchant account open:

1. Be careful when doing business with foreign nations. Eastern European and other developing nations are the major culprits in fraudulent purchases. Use a discerning eye before completing business transactions that you feel may be fishy.

2. Avoid completing transactions that come from free email addresses. It’s easy to figure out when an email comes from a free website (like www.yahoo.com or www.hotmail.com). If you get an order from one of these sites, you need to be careful because it’s much harder to track down the sender.

3. Retrieve CVC2 and CVV2 numbers. This is a great tactic to employ to avoid charge backs. It’s estimated that at least 25 % of charge backs can be avoided by this simple maneuver. These numbers are located on the backs of most major cards and all customers need to be prepared to release this information.

4. Be firm and up front about your security measures. Be sure to clearly label and identify your safety measures. This will reduce the fraudulent purchases in great numbers. Simply put, many criminals will avoid the sites that are serious about security as they have many other places on the web where they can prey.

5. Get copies of identification and the credit card being used. Be bold enough to demand customers to fax in copies of their licenses and credit cards. This is just another way you can protect yourself from fraudulent purchases.

6. Collect signatures. When delivering your product to customers make sure your delivery service collects signatures and then you need to obtain copies of these signature for your own records.

7. Don’t be afraid to exercise extreme due diligence with suspicious orders. If you get an order that seems strange or out of the ordinary, or just doesn’t feel right, it is imperative to verify the customer, ensuring that the transaction is authentic. If you receive an especially large order then it behooves you to verify the person or persons making the order before honoring such a request.