Accept credit card
“We accept credit cards”
“We accept credit cards” is a statement that you must have
come across multiple times at various shops, grocery stores and
other merchant outlets. This statement is generally accompanied
by a few stickers (Visa/Master card etc). Credit cards have
transformed the businesses and our lives to a great extent. A
few years back there were just a handful of shops that would
accept credit cards but today you will find that most of the
shops accept credit cards. In fact, some shops (like those
belonging to a big retail chain) not only accept credit cards
but also supply credit cards. These credit cards entitle you
for rebates when you use them at any of the stores of that
retail chain.
With credit cards around, a lot of people have stopped
carrying any cash with them or just carry a very small amount
of cash with them. That means that any shop that doesn’t accept
credit cards is potentially losing customers. In fact, this is
one reason why almost every merchant accepts credit cards.
With the evolution of internet, credit card industry too
took a new turn and up came ecommerce and e-shops. So, those
stickers of “We accept credit cards”, moved on to the doors of
internet shops. Thus came the era where almost every
online-shop would accept credit cards (directly or indirectly).
In fact, this was the premise on which the complete
online-business industry was based. This is convenience at its
best.
Fraud is associated with almost every financial instrument.
So there came fraudsters too, who too said that “We accept
credit cards”. These fraudsters use a lot of techniques to
commit credit card related fraud. Some of them disguise
themselves as online merchants who accept credit cards as mode
of payment (the actual motive being extraction of critical
credit card details). Others are people who work at merchant
shops that accept credit cards. These fraudsters either clone
the credit cards or just note critical information from them
(and use that for online-shopping). Some other fraudsters lure
innocent people into revealing credit card details in chat
rooms. And then there are tech-savvy fraudsters who use
computer programs/softwares/devices (called spyware) to spy on
the people who use their credit cards for online payments. The
spyware capture their credit card information and get it
transmitted to the spy using internet.
So a lot of merchants and service providers do accept credit
cards but keep in mind that the fraudsters too welcome/accept
credit cards. This is something you surely need to be careful
about.
|