Card payments security – part 2
CVV codes described in the previous part aren’t the only way to make your transactions secure. There are forms of security, which are based on the payer’s localization. However, you may also come across simpler solutions, where only entered data is verified.
An example of that could be AVS – its mechanism compares your address info given in the shopping order with details of the card holder. Depending on the degree and type of eventual errors, AVS returns an appropriate error code, which are the base of estimating the probability of a fraud. Contrary to appearances, it is not inconvenient to clients – the system can tell the difference between a real scam and a situation when a buyer made a spelling mistake.
Unfortunately, AVS has been so far available only in some countries, such as the USA, Canada or Great Britain.
Determining the actual localisation of the payer is something completely else. The GeoIP mechanism can find out plenty of information just from the client’s IP number. It allows to raise the fraud score for payments in some regions.
A more sophisticated form of security is the analysis of localisation history, which allows to determine the fraud score in accordance with various types of aberration. For example, if payments from one card have always been done from the Paris area, but suddenly an activity in South America is detected, it will definitely be looked into (although, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the payment will be declined). At the same time, if a card has always been used around the world, an activity on the other side of the globe will not be surprising, as it may mean the card holder travels frequently.
Another example would be card activity that is physically impossible – when payments are done in Europe, Americas or Asia within minutes of each other. Then, it is clear that they were not done by the same person.
The above mentioned methods are not the whole list of possible types of security, but they can be considered the most common ones. The applied mechanisms are not 100% fraud proof, as they are usually used to assess the fraud risk, and sometimes even the sellers can determine when and which transaction could be labeled as risky. And that is their individual business decision.
