In Brief

Warning Signs of Fraud

Often times, a fraudulent order has no single characteristic that gives it away

By Sarah D. Scalet

February 01, 2006 — CSO —

Often times, a fraudulent order has no single characteristic that gives it away. "It's almost like dust building up on an object," CyberSource's Vic Dolcourt says. "Little bits of suspicion get added up." Some of those specks:

• Shipping address and billing address don't match.
• Customer orders multiple items in the same size, color or style.
• Customer wants the fastest delivery option, regardless of price.
• Order total is much higher than a typical order.
• Multiple orders are going to one address. One scam: Fraudsters enlist people to "work at home" in the United States by receiving lots of deliveries and reshipping them overseas.
• Shipping address has a box number or suite number, indicating that the recipient may have set up a temporary address at a post office or UPS Store.
• Shipping address is in a country where the retailer has experienced a high amount of fraud.
• Shipping address is associated with past chargebacks or fraud according to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
• Customer has put a fraud alert on his file with the credit bureaus.
• Customer's e-mail address is a free Web-mail account.
• Multiple order attempts are coming from one IP address but with different customer names and credit card numbers.
• The geolocation of the customer's IP address is on one continent and the shipping or billing address is on another.

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