Make sure to get contact information for your customers. It’s important to be able to get in touch with them if there’s any problem with their transaction, or if they later dispute the transaction. Name, address, phone number, and email address are good pieces of information to have.

Let your customers know what’s going to show up on their credit card statement when you process their card. If customers don’t know what’s going to show up, they will be more likely to dispute the charge, simply because they are unsure what the charge was for. If you don’t know what is going to show up on your customer’s statements, please feel free to give Customer Service a call at 866-573-0951 and we can make sure you have that information.

 

Provide your customers with a receipt for their order, detailing the items they purchased. Keep a signed copy of the same receipt for your records.

Make sure your refund and return policies are communicated clearly to your customers. They should know these policies before making their purchases.

If you have shipped products to your customer, it’s a good idea to keep record of delivery confirmation from the company you used to ship the items. This way, if there’s any question, you can prove that the items were actually delivered to your customer.

AVS codes (AVS stands for Address Verification System) are provided for each credit card transaction you process. The billing address information that you enter for your customer will automatically be run against the billing address they have on file with their bank. If all of the information matches, you will receive a Y code. If you only enter the customer’s zip code (the only required address information), or if only the zip code matches the bank’s records, you will receive a Z code. If neither the street address nor the zip code matches what the bank has on file, you will receive an N code. Why are these important? Sometimes your customers may have moved recently and haven’t yet updated the address on file with their bank, or they might not remember that they have an old address listed and so the information might not match. However, sometimes the address information not matching could indicate that the transaction might not be safe for you. If someone steals a credit card, they can process the card anywhere, but they might not know the address information to get a match. Be careful to pay attention to AVS codes and if you feel uncomfortable with the result you see in your report, you can always void the transaction and ask the customer to provide a different form of payment.

Another indication of an unsafe transaction could be if your customer enters a different billing address and shipping address. Of course there are legitimate reasons that your customer might do this: if they are paying for the products, but they want to ship them to someone else as a gift; if they’ve moved and haven’t updated their billing address information yet, but they want the items shipped to their new address, etc. However, like an N AVS code, this can be an indication of an unsafe transaction. Someone who steals a credit card might also figure out the billing address information, but they would want to be the one to receive the products, so they will ship them to their address. As with our other recommendations, simply be aware of your customers, their situations, and if you feel uneasy about a transaction, you have the option to void or refund that transaction. (For more details on how to void or refund a transaction, please see our instructions here.)

We also recommend that you regularly check your transaction report. After you have processed a transaction check your reports to see that the transaction has gone through. Your reports online are most reliable, so if you’re ever unsure about your transaction history in the app, simply login to your account online and check your reports there. Your reports are only available online for two years, so please be sure to regularly download your reports to save for your records.