[10816] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Billing on the net
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Per Gregers Bilse)
Thu Mar 10 18:29:50 1994
From: Per Gregers Bilse <bilse@eu.net>
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 17:48:38 +0200
In-Reply-To: <9403100942.AA02150@albion.com>
To: seth@albion.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
On Mar 10, 1:42, Seth Ross wrote:
> a general query: Are there any businesses accepting credit card
> orders over the net, either via email or other mechanisms?
We do, for sign-up for EUnet Traveller; the customer signs up
('places the order') via telnet.
> If so, how do these businesses deal with the obvious security
> and fraud concerns?
This isn't terribly different from telephone orders; in our case,
though, we (so far) don't ship a product to a specific address
(many companies taking telephone orders will only ship goods to the
address the customer has registered with the CC company). However,
this is counterbalanced by the nature of the product and the
registration procedure.
When signing up, the customer is asked to supply both an email
address and a snail-mail address (registered with his CC company); we
then verify the card details and the email address / home account.
After around typically 24 hours, the customer's account with us is
enabled.
The CC companies are quite happy with this (and it's really their
problem); the amounts of money are small, and in addition
it's unlikely that all the ingredients for a successful fraud
will be present. A potential fraudster will have to do the
following:
- 'steal' a card-number (belonging to an Internet user)
- break into the card-holders home account
- go travelling in Europe
And even then he probably wouldn't run up sky-high bills.
--
bilse <bilse@EU.net> +31 20 592 5109 (dir: 5110); fax +31 20 592 5163
