Verifying and charging payment

Anti-Fraud

There are some anti-fraud measures in place in WHMCS which detect the majority of fraudulent orders.

Maxmind

If you look at any order, you will see information on the order as seen by Maxmind. This checks things such as whether an open proxy is in use, whether the IP address matches the country.

If the user opens a ticket wondering why their order was marked as fraud, make a common sense call on whether you think it is (e.g. if it's from an open proxy, do not accept the order and let them know why).

GeoFilter

GeoFilter looks up the address to make sure it is valid. This often will not recognise PO Box address. If a customer raises a ticket, make a common sense judgement and consider clicking Verify Client on the customer's summary to unmark the order/invoice as fraudulent.

Payment Specifics

Customers can pay by direct credit/debit cards, PayPal or Google Checkout.

PayPal

Generally, PayPal orders are legitimate but do a sanity check and make sure things vaguely match up.

Credit/debit cards

Direct credit/debit cards can often be fraudulent. Before manually creating any order, consider the below as they are indicators of fraud:

• The VPS purchased is expensive (e.g. Tycoon 5.0).
• The emails sent to the client include many Credit card failed emails.
• The card owner's name in the SagePay interface does not match the product name.
• The card owner's address or card issuing country does not even vaguely match.

Do not feel afraid to open a Sales support ticket with the client to clarify details before continuing. A template is provided under Sales -> Clarification of Client Details and you can choose how long you wish to wait. Note that if you Void a transaction under SagePay then it is not actually billed (but can only be done up to midnight). A refund incurs some extra costs for GigaTux but is better than a chargeback for a fraudulent transaction.

Google Checkout

Google Checkout is a bit different. Hopefully sometime after the initial sale email, you will receive an email receipt for payment from Google. This will have a title something like Purchase Receipt for Order #306214754979201. When you receive this initial email, it does not mean that the payment has been successful as very often the customer goes through a validation check from Google.

1. Click on the link to Google Checkout within the email you receive and log in.
2. If the status of the order reads something like Validating customer, wait until this process is complete. Keep checking this order periodically.

Payment taken by Google

If the order passes verification checks, ensure that it is charged. Then, click Ship and enter dummy shipping details. At this point, you can progress to Creating the customer account.

Payment rejected by Google

You may receive a further email from Google saying that the customer could not be validated. This is often a synonym for This is a fraudulent order, and you can confirm this by clicking on the link and reading what Google really says about this order:

Order history

13 Apr     03:55 Order cancelled For your protection, Google cancelled this order. The transaction was considered fraudulent. 13 Apr     01:54 Order received You received a new order. Google has sent the customer an order confirmation email.

If you see this, send an email to the buyer using the GigaTux - Payment Issues template as a basis.

• Never accuse the purchaser of fraud.
• Do not create the VPS until initial payment is received.