Today must be my lucky day.

Having a business on the Internet always attracts the scammers, but we rarely have trouble since our Authorize.net account filters out all the obvious troublemakers. However when credit card information is stolen from databases or people are careless with their card the bad guys can get enough information to make it look like it is a valid transaction.

Just now I got a large order for 2 electronic dictionaries (the most expensive ones) with cases. This is unusual in itself. But it also was to Indonesia. Two red flags popped up and slapped me on my face… We do have some good customers in Indonesia so I was considering giving it the benefit of the doubt until I saw this was his third try with three different numbers. What’s even more disconcerting is each of the orders had a match for both the zip and the CVV number. This is information only the cardholder should have.

I’m on hold with a fraud guy now contacting the respective banks. I’ve been on the phone for the past hour. I could just ignore this, cancel the payment and watch 24, but I really want these cardholders to know their card has been compromised. (sounds like a line from 24…)

So on the phone I wait…