Categories of Identity Theft

What is Identity Theft?

Identity theft and identity fraud are terms used to refer to all types of crimes in which someone wrongfully obtains and uses another person’s personal data.

Basic categories of identity theft:

Account Takeover Fraud – is one of the two basic forms of financial identity theft, it occurs when a fraudster obtains and uses a victim’s personal information to take control of existing bank or credit card accounts and carries out unauthorized transactions right at a point of sale or access individual accounts online. Victims are often the first to detect account takeover when they discover charges on monthly statements they did not authorize or funds depleted from existing accounts.

Business or commercial identity theft – entails using a business’ name to obtain credit or even billing a business’ clients for products and services. Business identity theft can go on for years undetected.

Criminal identity theft – occurs when an imposter gives another person’s name and personal information such as drivers’ license, date of birth, or Social Security Number to a law enforcement officer during an investigation or upon arrest.

Identity cloning – some people use identity theft and identity cloning interchangeably, but definitely are not the same thing. True identity clones pretends to be you, they want to assume your identity. They want to become YOU.

Medical identity theft – occurs when someone steals your personal information (like name, Social Security Number or MediCare Number) to obtain medical care in your name. Medical identity theft can damage your credit rating.

New Account Fraud – means using another’s personal identifying information to obtain products and services. New credit card accounts is the most prevalent form of new account fraud. Because the thief is likely to use a different mailing address, the victim never sees the bill for the new account. When this type of fraud involves a credit card, once the new plastic is issued, the criminal turns it into cash very quickly. Victims may also be denied credit as a result of applying for loans.

 

 

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: bank, credit, credit card, data, fraud, medical, Medicare, point of sale, transactions

End Of Life Terminal Outage

End Of Life (EOL) terminals are terminals that are no longer produced by the manufacturer, but are still commonly in use today, some of these terminals may be considered obsolete.

If you’re a merchant having trouble with your Hypercom/Equinox 4200 series terminals and they have stopped working or you’re receiving an error message such as Security Error please call your service provider to discuss available options. This is an industry-wide outage that potentially affects all Hypercom/Equinox users.

Now’s a great time to upgrade If you haven’t already, you will need to adopt point-of-sale devices with NFC/contactless readers where you can accept Apple Pay, Android Pay and other contactless device in your business. National Transaction Terminals are EMV/NFC/Contactless readers capable! Give us a call now! at 888-996-2273 or visit our website www.nationaltransaction.com

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: Android Pay, Apple Pay, contactless readers, EMV, Equinox, hypercom, merchant, nfc, point of sale, terminal

Learn the new checkout process with Chip and Pin

Adoption of EMV technology in the U.S is important, because it provides protection against losses from counterfeit cards.

EMV, or chip cards, are the standard for secure point-of-sale (POS) transactions. Unlike magnetic stripe cards, chip cards are very difficult to counterfeit because of an embedded microchip that exchanges unique, dynamic data with a terminal each time it’s used.

To encourage the timely adoption of EMV, the leading payment networks have implemented an EMV Fraud Liability Shift that began in October 2015.

Both parties, card issuer and the merchant need to invest with EMV technology. If only one party has adopted EMV technology, the party that didn’t make the investment will be held liable.

For the card issuer, they came out with the chip cards, where all credit and debit cards have this security chips that are harder to counterfeit than magnetic strips.

For the merchant, an EMV capable terminals or POS hardware that can take advantage of the card’s security chip is needed.

With any new technology, there is a learning curve, and here are the things that you need to know.

For cardholders – with a chip card instead of swiping your card, you are going to do what is called card dipping; by inserting your card face-up and chip-first into the terminal slot. Wait and follow the terminal prompts, and only remove your card once the transaction is complete.

If you did a swipe on a chip card, an EMV-enabled terminal should prompt you to insert the card instead. If the terminal is not enabled for chip, you can still be able to swipe your card.

Employees will benefit from training – Once a merchant enables their EMV terminals, it is important to train your staff with talking points about why chip cards benefit consumers with greater security, and how they are used by helping customers with the new checkout process.

New mobile payment methods leverage both EMV and NFC, so the industry is now seeing greater interest in mobile payments among merchants and consumers.

There’s a lot of resources out there to help businesses make the transition with this EMV technology.

 

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Security, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Near Field Communication Tagged with: card issuer, chip cards, debit cards, EMV, magnetic stripe, merchants, microchip, Mobile Payments, nfc, payment networks, point of sale, POS, terminal slot

Accepting Credit Card Payments an Advantage to your Business

It is difficult to believe that many businesses still do not accept credit or debit cards for payments, while most customers preferred using cards for the following reasons.

• Doesn’t want to carry cash.
• Security and Protection offered by card issuers.
• Desire to earn reward points.

Some of the many advantages for businesses that accept credit card payments include:

Easy and cost efficient – credit card processing has become a highly competitive industry. NTC offers the latest in EMV and NFC technologies that allows businesses to accept contactless payment like Apple and Android Pay. NTC integrates with most POS systems.

Essential for online sales – internet selling is growing. The Internet makes it possible for a small business in a remote location to offer its products to potential customers throughout the nation and even across the world, almost all of those transactions require a credit or debit card.

Increases revenue – people like the convenience and security of paying with a credit or debit card. In fact, 66 percent of point-of-sale transactions use credit, debit or gift cards.

Merchant services accelerate cash flow – credit card transactions process quickly, with proceeds generally available in a bank account within two days or less. That eliminates the time it normally takes checks to clear. It also reduces or eliminates billing and the time spent waiting to receive payment checks from customers.

Reduce transaction risks – Check fraud remains a major problem for U.S. businesses, 77% of businesses were victims of check fraud, only 34% experienced credit card fraud and 92% said they believe new EMV chip and pin, credit cards will significantly reduce fraud at the point of sale.

Setting up a merchant account for your business is as simple as contacting a merchant service provider. A merchant service provider process payments and make sure the money is appropriately withdrawn from a credit card account and placed into the business’s merchant account.

For more details about setting up an account give us a call now! at 888-996-2273.

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: (POS) systems, Android Pay, Apple, Chip and PIN, contactless payment, credit card, debit cards, EMV, Gift Cards, merchant, merchant account, merchant service provider, merchant services, NFC technologies, payments, point of sale

Big Moment is Today Are you EMV Ready?

The day the payments industry has pointed to for several years arrives today, a turning point in the U.S.‘s migration to EMV chip-and-PIN cards.

Rules set by Visa and MasterCard as of today, the liability for fraud carried out in physical stores with counterfeit cards belongs to the merchant if it has not yet upgraded its POS system to accept EMV-enabled chip cards. Banks will be issuing EMV Chip Cards.

An enormous change, as everyone learns to deal with the new technology that requires consumers to insert their cards and leave them in the store machines throughout a payment transaction, rather than swipe.

In a recent survey, less than a third of merchants overall have invested in EMV-compliant technology, and one study said 80 percent of small and midsize merchants have not upgraded their systems as of today’s liability shift.

Issuers are claiming to be more prepared than merchants, but according to the Smart Card Alliance, around 200 million chip cards have been issued to U.S. cardholders. That, however, is less than 17 percent of the approximately 1.2 billion payment cards in circulation.

What is clear is that today does not represent the end of the journey. The lack of preparedness at the physical point of sale, however, may be beneficial for card-not-present merchants.

Over the past few months, the mainstream media has awoken to the fact that implementing EMV does not mean fraud will disappear. Fraudsters quickly adapted to the difficulty of counterfeiting cards by attacking Card-Not-Present channels, where a chip has no effect.

In other markets, fraud migrated quite rapidly to card-not-present channels. It is necessary on e-commerce merchants to protect themselves with an array of tools, like device authentication, one-time passwords, randomized PIN pad and biometrics. Fraud mitigation tools like data analytics, address and CVV verification, 3D secure and tokenization. These services should be available from their merchant acquirer processor or gateway.

There should be a gradual reduction in card fraud over the next 12-18 months in spite of the delays in this country’s EMV migration. It’s going to take time for the technology to be adopted.

U.S. Merchants’ overall relative lack of preparedness for EMV may give e-commerce and mobile merchants time they didn’t think they would have to explore the options.

Sophisticated authentication technologies such as biometrics will help increase the security of card transactions. Device-based verification could be easily incorporated in an EMV transaction.

Banks have expressed interest more in using the phone as a biometrics. It’s all going to depend on what is the most convenient way to access your funds. The nice thing about biometrics is it’s meant to enable more convenience and stronger security.

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, e-commerce & m-commerce, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Point of Sale Tagged with: banks, biometrics, card fraud, card-not-present, chip cards, chip-and-PIN cards, e-commerce, EMV, gateway, merchant acquirer, merchants, mobile merchants, payments industry, point of sale, POS system, processor, tokenization, Visa and MasterCard

National Transaction Terminals with NFC (near field communication) Capability

National Transaction Terminals with NFC (near field communication) Capability to accept Apple Pay, Android Pay and other NFC payment transactions at your business. You will need to adopt point-of-sale devices with NFC/Contactless readers.

National Transaction offer a range of options to suite your specific needs.  

Give us a call now! 1-888-996-2273 or go to www.nationaltransaction.com

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, Credit Card Reader Terminal, Credit Card Security, Mobile Point of Sale, Near Field Communication, Point of Sale, Smartphone Tagged with: Android Pay, Apple Pay, contactless readers, Near Field Communication, nfc, payment, point of sale

Questions to ask to help you decide about terminal upgrade

If you accept credit cards and don’t know what EMV is here is what you need to know.

EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa. A credit card that had a chip embedded in it is an EMV. EMV Cards have been standard in Europe for more than 10 years because they’re more secure than magnetic stripe cards. Magnetic stripe cards doesn’t change, it has static data, which makes them easy to clone. The chip embedded card makes it more difficult and costly to counterfeit because the data that is transmitted changes each time the card is read. This means less fraud.

Questions to ask to help you decide about terminal upgrade.

• Calculate your risk – Consider the cost of replacing your point-of-sale (POS) terminal vs. potential risk. Whether you replace it now or at a later time, eventually all businesses will have to replace their POS terminals.
• Educate your staff – Educated employees translate to better-educated customers. Merchants can help customers better understand this change and what it means for them.
• Upgrade your POS system – Consider using an EMV compliant credit-card reader on a wireless device for an ultra-secure mobile solution. This is also a chance to upgrade other options, such as near field communication NFC technology, which lets consumers use their mobile devices to make payments at the point of sale.

 

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Reader Terminal, Credit Card Security, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Mobile Point of Sale, Near Field Communication, Point of Sale Tagged with: chip, credit card reader, credit cards, data, EMV, emv cards, EuroPay, magnetic stripe cards, MasterCard, merchants, Mobile Devices, Near Field Communication, nfc, payments, point of sale, POS terminal, visa

Apple Pay Revolution A new way to pay!

 

National Transaction Terminals with NFC (near field communication) Capability   

To accept Apple Pay transactions at your business, you will need to adopt point-of-sale devices with NFC/contactless readers.

National Transaction offer a range of options to suite your specific needs:

Tablet solutions:                                                                                                               Talech with iCMP device and NCR Silver.

Short-range wireless terminals for pay at the table: Bring the point-of-sale to your customers. Ideal for table-service restaurants, curbside pick-up, salons and more.

These terminals are all-in-one solutions with an integrated PIN Pad and printer. The short range terminals use secure, encrypted Bluetooth technology, allowing only the base and terminal to talk to each other, while also monitoring channels to prevent interference from other devices.

The Bluetooth terminals we offer are:                                                                            VeriFone VX680B and Ingenico iWL220B. (Both Bluetooth Wireless)

Long-range wireless (cellular/mobile) terminals: Have a long-life battery and compact design, which allows you to process transactions anywhere your customers are ideal for deliveries, kiosks and more.

These terminals are all-in-one solutions with an integrated PIN Pad and printer. Phone lines and internet connections are not required to take advantage of our mobile payment solutions.

The GPRS wireless terminals we offer are:                                                                      VeriFone VX680G and Ingenico iWL250G. (Both GPRS Wireless)

Countertop terminals:                                                                                                    

Ingenico iCT250 – has a “magic box” cable management system that prevents cable tangle and clutter. The terminal boasts a color display for improved readability and ease of use.

Verifone VX520 – has a built-in secure software authentication process which prevents unauthorized software applications from being downloaded.

Ingenico iCT220 with iPP320 external PIN pad – has a “magic box” cable management system that prevents cable tangle and clutter, along with a black and white screen for crisp visual clarity. Combine with an iPP320 for a consumer- facing solution to support contactless payments. (Note: the iCT220 device only supports contactless transactions when connected to this external PIN pad).

Whether you need a stand-alone POS terminal, want to take advantage of your existing tablet or PC, or require a wireless or mobile solution, National Transaction Corp., offers numerous user-friendly options. No matter how your customer wants to pay, NTC will help you enable quick and easy transactions from Traditional credit and debit cards, gift cards, smart cards (or EMV), mobile or digital wallets like Apple Pay and eCommerce or MOTO transactions.

Start growing your business quickly by accepting all kinds of credit card payments and  debit cards. Choose a state-of-the-art solution so you can accept payment in store or on your mobile device. With transparent pricing, live customer support, no cancellation fees and a secure platform, you’ll be confident you made the right partner for your business with National Transaction Corp.

Learn how easy it can be to accept any contactless or Apple Pay transactions.

Click here for more information about Apple Pay.

For Merchant Account Setup give us a call at 888-996-2273 or visit our website www.nationaltransaction.com

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, e-commerce & m-commerce, Mail Order Telephone Order, Mobile Point of Sale, Near Field Communication, Point of Sale Tagged with: Apple Pay transactions, contactless readers, Countertop terminals, credit card, debit cards, Digital wallets, ecommerce, Gift Cards, mobile payment, moto, Near Field Communication, nfc, PIN pad, point of sale, POS terminal, smart cards, wireless terminals

Are you EMV Capable or Enabled?

The credit card processing industry, have been working towards including EMV technology in all of the point of sale systems.

Many processors have sent out EMV capable devices that will need to be adjusted before they can start accepting EMV card transactions.

See which category you fall into so you are prepared when October 1 rolls around.

First, check and see if your credit card machine has the slot to accept EMV cards (it’s either a slot in front, or on the top of, the unit). If you don’t, you need to contact your processors or sales agent to update your equipment .

If you do have the slot for EMV cards, you’ll need to contact National Transaction to see if your EMV capable machine has been enabled to accept EMV cards.

What is the difference between EMV capable and EMV enabled?

• EMV Capable – EMV capable means that your credit card machine is equipped with the hardware (i.e. the slot) and has the capability to do a transaction, but first you’ll have to update the application to enable you to process the cards.                                                 At National Transaction, we have a support specialist to assist you with step-by-step instructions to switch your credit card Point-of-Sale System, from EMV capable to EMV enabled.

• EMV Enabled – When your machine is EMV enabled, your terminal is ready to accept EMV transactions.                                                                                                               According to MasterCard, 73 percent of consumers say owning a chip card would encourage them to use their card more often. In addition, 75 percent of consumers expect to use their chip card at the merchants where they shop today.                     Keeping these numbers in mind, it only makes sense to equip your business with an EMV enabled credit card POS system.

What makes EMV technology so important?

EMV is a global payment system that adds a microprocessor chip into credit cards and debit cards, and reduces the chance a transaction is being made with a stolen or copied credit card. Unlike traditional magnetic-stripe cards, anytime you use an EMV card, the chip in the card creates a unique transaction sequence that can’t be replicated. Because the number will never be valid again, it makes it hard for hackers to fake these cards. If they attempt to use the copied EMV card, the transaction would be denied.

The rollout of EMV technology is ongoing, but even with the October 1 deadline, it’s estimated that only 70 percent of credit cards and 40 percent of debit cards in the U.S. will support EMV. Despite these numbers, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t update your equipment.

Following the deadline, card present fraud liability will shift to whoever is the least EMV compliant party in a fraudulent transaction.

Make sure that’s not you!

 

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, Credit Card Reader Terminal, Credit Card Security, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Point of Sale Tagged with: card present, card transactions, chip, chip card, credit card, credit card processing, debit cards, EMV, EMV capable, EMV enabled, emv technology, magnetic stripe cards, merchants, payment system, point of sale, POS, processors, terminal

Are New Payment Methods Worth the Investment for Merchants?

The digital payments landscape is changing at a rapid pace. Consumers are finally adopting digital wallets, like Apple Pay and Android Pay.

The deadline for merchants to become EMV compliant, the global standard that covers the processing of credit and debit card payments using a card that contains a microprocessor chip, is quickly approaching.

Today’s consumers show an increasing desire to use new payment methods because they’re convenient. However, this presents a challenge to merchants, as many have not made the switch to the modern technology required to accept these methods since they’re generally hard-wired to resist technology changes.

Merchants must evolve with technology or they’ll find themselves unable to compete and in danger of losing customers.

Looking long term, the benefits of adopting new payment technology will outweigh the cost of transitioning. The fact is that new payment technology will reduce fraud risk due to counterfeit cards, provide greater insight into shoppers with sophisticated data and will ultimately lower costs for merchants over time.

The value merchants will get out of new payment methods: 

Security

Investing in new payment technology will help reduce the risk of fraud. EMV, as an example. Beginning in October 2015, merchants and the financial institutions that have made investments in EMV will be protected from financial fraud liability for card-present fraud losses for both counterfeit, lost, stolen and non-receipt fraud.

EMV is already a standard in Europe, where fraud is on the decline. In turn, American credit card issuers are being pressured to replace easily hacked magnetic strips on cards with more secure “chip-and-PIN” technology. Europe has been using Chip, and Chip & Pin for years.

There’s nothing that can guarantee 100 percent security, but when EMV is coupled with other payment innovations, like tokenization that separate the customer’s identity from the payment, much of the cost and risk of identity theft is eliminated. If hackers get access to the token, all they get is information from one transaction. They don’t have access to credit card numbers or banking accounts, so the damage that can be done is minimal.

As card fraud rises, there’s a strong case to upgrade to a payment system that works with a smartphone or tablet and accepts both EMV chip cards and tokens.

Insight into Customer Behavior

In addition to added security, upgrading to new payment technology opens up a door to greater customer insights, improved consumer engagement and enables merchants to grow revenue by providing customers with receipts, rewards, points and coupons. By collecting marketing data at the point of sale a business can save on that data that they only dreamed of buying.

Investment Outweighs the Cost

New technology does have upfront costs, but merchants need to think about it as an investment that will grow top-line revenue. Beware of providers offering free hardware. Business can benefit by doing some research on the actual cost of the hardware.

By increasing security, merchants are further enabling mobile and emerging technologies, which will make shopping easier.

Customers will also be more confident in using their cards.

As an added bonus to merchants, most EMV-enabled POS equipment will include contactless technology, allowing merchants to accept contactless and mobile payments. This will result in a quicker check-out experience so merchants can handle more transactions.

Faster customer checkout.                                               

The best system for is the one that makes the merchant as efficient and profitable as possible, as well as improves the customer checkout experience.

Retail climate is competitive, merchants have two choices:

Do nothing or embrace the fact that payments are changing. Transitions from old systems to new ones require work and risk, but merchants who use modern technology are investing in the future and will certainly outperform those who choose to do nothing.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Mobile Payments, Near Field Communication, Point of Sale Tagged with: American credit card, card, card present, chip, Chip and PIN, contactless technology, credit, data, debit card, digital payments, Digital wallets, EMV, EMV compliant, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, merchants, Mobile Payments, payment innovations, payment methods, payment technology, payments, point of sale, POS, provider's, smartphone, tablet, token, tokenization, transaction