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How Problematic Are Chargebacks for Business Owners?

Chargebacks for Business

Chargebacks are a reality of accepting credit card payments. While many chargebacks are requested for valid reasons, there are plenty of cases in which disputes are initiated despite the merchant holding up every aspect of their end of the bargain. Unfortunately, many merchants don’t really understand the dispute process, how to handle a chargeback, or the consequences that chargebacks represent to the health of their businesses. Those consequences can include unexpected drains on revenue, penalties levied by the card companies, and across-the-board rate increases. 

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What Visa and MC Updated Dispute and Fraud Monitoring Programs Mean For You

Merchant Services

For obvious reasons, the major credit card companies take fraud and excessive chargebacks very seriously, and companies like Visa and Mastercard have put forward thorough monitoring and tracking systems to try to prevent the losses associated with them. In October 2019, both companies made changes to their chargeback and fraud defense programs, and it’s important that merchants keep up on the details of those changes, as getting tied up in any of these programs can result in costly fines and burdensome assessments.

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Are You Doing the Right PCI Self-Assessment Questionnaire?

PCI

Part of establishing PCI compliance and maintaining it year in and year out is filling out an annual PCI self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ). These questionnaires are designed to accomplish two goals: to help businesses identify weaknesses that need to be dealt with and to help prove to institutions that a company is compliant. But not all companies handle credit cards in the same way, so PCI has put together nine different versions of the SAQ. The difference in length and complexity between the shortest and longest versions is extreme – 22 questions versus 329. As a result, it’s important that companies select the proper SAQ for self-assessments because choosing poorly could result in under-analysis, or alternately, a lot of unnecessary work. Below is a quick review of each SAQ version to help with proper selection. 

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PCI Compliance and The Potentially High Costs of a Breach

PCI Compliance

Let’s talk about PCI Compliance. In the summer of 2019, it came out that Capital One – a credit card issuer themselves – fell victim to a hack that exposed the data of 100 million cardholders and applicants. That might seem extreme, but it’s only the latest in a series of high-profile security breaches that have resulted in the theft of personal data. In 2018, Marriott discovered a years-long breach that exposed the data of 500 million customers. In 2014 a breach exposed the data of 56 million Home Depot customers, and a year before that, Target was hit with a hack that exposed 110 million customers. Other household names that have fallen victim to hacks in that time have included Yahoo, Adobe, eBay, Sony, and more. 

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Authorize.Net Direct Post Security Upgrade: Updating MD5 to SHA-512

Authorize.Net Direct Post Security Upgrade

Authorize.Net – the most popular payment gateway service provider in the world – is in the process of making a big change to how it verifies transactions, and that change impacts the business of every single one of their Direct Post users.

The company is phasing out MD5-based hashing and switching to SHA-512 signature key hashing. The last stage of the switch goes into effect on June 27th, 2019, and every business using Authorize.Net Direct Post, including BAMS users, will have to switch over before that date to avoid interruptions to their payment processing services.

To a lot of merchants, this might be a confusing topic or seem like an unnecessary hassle, but this change is an important step in keeping Authorize.Net’s transaction security on the cutting edge – something that benefits every single merchant on the platform.

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What Tools Does BAMS Offer for Offline and Online Merchants?

Online Merchant

BAMS is the industry leader in payment processing, trusted by thousands of merchants across the globe. That success is due to our full suite of features designed to help businesses like yours accept electronic payments with less fuss, and lower fees. BAMS has been designed from the ground up to provide all of the functionality needed by both our online and offline partners, and thanks to that client-focused design, 98% of our users report lower stress when working with BAMS merchant accounts.  Here are just a few of the many features BAMS offers to our clients in both digital and brick-and-mortar sales.

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How Your Business Can Protect Itself Against Chargebacks

Chargeback Protection

Chargebacks are an unfortunate reality of accepting credit card payments, but they aren’t something businesses have to lie down and accept without a fight. Some chargebacks are completely legitimate, like cases where a purchase was made fraudulently by a third party. But many chargebacks are fraudulent, frivolous, or abuses of the system. In those cases, there is no reason for a company to accept losing the revenue, the product, and the additional chargeback penalty, and fighting back is in order.

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TurboApp – IRIS CRM’s Merchant-Boarding Secret Weapon

Merchant

All BAMS customers receive full access to IRIS CRM, one of the most powerful customer resource management platforms currently available on the market. IRIS CRM provides a full suite of tools that enable companies to manage all aspects of their operations, from communications to leads and prospecting, to sales, to payments, and beyond.

One of IRIS CRM’s most important features is TurboApp, a built-in application designed specifically for independent sales organizations looking to streamline their merchant boarding. With TurboApp, what was once an involved process requiring large amounts of manual entry can now be almost completely automated, allowing users to board new merchants far more efficiently than ever before.

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What Is Level 3 Credit Card Processing And How Can It Help Your Business?

Level 3 Credit Card

The average person doesn’t consider the VISA or Mastercard in their pocket to be any different from a company or government credit card – aside from the limit, of course. But there are actually significant differences in how corporate and government cards are used and processed. Those differences mean that not all merchants can accept all types of credit cards, and they also change the way issuing banks view transactions. The result is that merchants who can process these special credit cards – known as Level 3 cards – stand to benefit greatly.

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