provided by Star2Billing S.L.

is anyone using carrierx using credit card. I sign up for service and wanted to test the service before I commit to it. and want me to fax them a copy of the front and back of my credit card. that is a very dangerous practice. they is other ways to very the authenticity of a credit card. I wanted to know if anyone have had experience with they using credit card.

thanks

Yep. It's a bit frightning. But there are who they say they are and they won't still your credit card info. They are merely protecting themselves. Give it a try. You will quickly get used to it.

grapher01,

I totally agree with you!!!

Checkout my post on this topic. This is a security risk just waiting to happen.

If you know of any other alternatives out there, or if you know of a way we can convince them as a group to change their policy, let me know.

thx,

razor[/url]

Gentlemen, I understand your concerns but I have recently discovered an even more frightening thing about credit cards. Do you know that most of the time when you use a credit card, the copy that you leave with the vendor has your full credit card number exposed whilst your copy have a masked number like 1234*********7890.

Out of concern, I have one day contacted my credit card company and they told me to take the time to make the numbers unreadable with a pen on the vendor's copy of the receipt. Basically, after the transaction, the vendor can trace it with the transaction ID and do not need the full card number. Also, why would they need your card number after the transaction have been accepted? I have notice this 80% of the time. Anyone can pay more attention to this matter and realize that they are leaving vital financial information behind them like breadcrumbs.

That's basically why we keep seeing those little punks going through businesses garbage bin hoping to recover a credit card number just in case the vendor didn't take the time to properly shred the receipts.

So as you see, the damage is already done or waiting to happen. Like a time bomb.

When it comes to CarrieXchange, I have used a disaster prevention technique in the past that seems to be efficient. Here it is:

You can get a separate credit card with a low limit or better yet, a prepaid credit card. You just fill it up with some money only when you are ready to spend it right away. You can even dedicate that card to CarrieXchange usage only and make sure that you let the credit card company know about that. So every usage attempt from other companies will be rejected.

Or, without letting the CC company know, if a non carriexchange expense appears on your CarrieX Exclusive Credit Card, you will pull out the red flag and blow the whistles.

But as I mentioned, in our everyday life, the way we use our credit cards is far more risky than what carrieX is doing cause we maybe not even remember were we used it sometimes and who have had access to the informations (waiters, waitresses, other unhappy employees, garbage punks, ... ) or we can simply accidentally loose a receipt in a public place.

Cheers

Asiby,

Your idea is certainly a good one. However, my concern is not so much so the possibility of someone going on a spending spree. For the most part, the banks/credit card companies will insure you in the event of something like that.

My main concern stems from the possibility of Identity Theft. This is a very real problem, and it is worsened by the fact that it would be happening worlds away from here, making it even harder to discover in time. The only time you would discover it, would be the next time you try to board a plane, and you get stopped.

If you stop and think about it, these would be criminals (not accusing anyone) would have your signature, plus the actual card, all they need now is one other piece of ID, and presto...your identity has been cloned/stolen. At this point, they can be committing all kinds of crimes, etc. and your credit card company or the banks will not come to your rescue. There have reports in the news of people who have fallen victim to Identity Theft, and you would not believe the horrors they went through, trying to clear their names.

In short, I think that their business model is a horrible idea (especially when there are so many easier and safer alternatives), and I don't think we should be encouraging it.

just my 2cents.

razor

The concept of identity theft is the whole reason that companies such as carriexchange and others require front back of the credit card. They want to make sure you haven't simply lifted the numbers, and that you are the genuine credit card holder.

I definately use the philosophy of a dedicted card that I control the balance on it (use a debit card where you still get full MC/Visa protections such as chargebacks if needed, but where you've got control of the money available on it.

What about the concept of PayPal, Email Money Transfer, MoneyGram, Western Union, etc??? No fraud, no hassle, no identity theft, minimized risk.

Correct me, but I am certain that when you setup your A2B box, you will not be asking your customers to fax/email both sides of their credit card. No, you would facilitate the transaction by making one of the above mentioned payment options available to them (and hence the reason why there is a payment module built into A2B).

Anyhow, it is clear, that there will be supporters for both sides, and it is not likely that either side will convince the other anytime soon.

So, I guess to each their own, and let us hope that nobody becomes a victim of any nefarious activities.

Dunno about Western Union, but PayPal and the likes are INFINITELY more prone to identity theft. On the buyer side you're protected because any unauthorized charges made on your account will be charged back to the vendor if you complain. But on the vendor side they have absolutely no protection - if some punk decided to make a series of charges with false paypal accounts, the vendor has no way to know about it until they get the chargeback - at which point they've already provided services for free for up to 90 days.

I agree that it's annoying to the customer but think about it from the vendor side- they have absolutely no way of knowing who you are and if you're a legit user or a fake one.



You stand corrected. I do ask them to send me a clear copy of their drivers license or passport. I'll accept users who refuse to do that too if they seem legit, but as a standard practice I want to know who my users are.

This is a good idea from a legal standpoint too. Take the following scenarios:
1. a 15 year old geek who got dumped by his gf decides to take revenge by stealing a paypal account, creating a fake account on your site, and routing obscene calls to her in the middle of the night.
2. an international drug cartel needs to discuss their transactions anonymously. they open a couple of accounts on your site, and talk unmonitored to their hearts content.

In both scenarios you will be required by law enforcement to provide details about the account owners, and most likely would be required to allow tapping those lines. If you don't have account details YOU might get into trouble, and even if you do, making the arrangements for line tapping is expensive and annoying. Wouldn't you rather verify who your users are to begin with and prevent both scenarios from happening to begin with?

I appreciate feedback, however, in the scenario's that you have presented, asking potential customers for that sort of information would most likely drive them away (I know it would drive me away). And besides, even if you obtained the identification, there is now way for you to verify exactly who they say the are (unless you're going to run a security check on each customer), they could have easily stolen that information from someone, or cloned it. I guess the point is, there is no really way of being 100% certain of who you are dealing with on the Net. All that being said, CarrieX should consider using more widely adopted practices. If they are truly concerned about security, they could use the verified facility offered by PayPal, whereby they will only accept customers that have Verified Accounts. This would offer the same level of security that you've described. And from a purely security standpoint, any bank, or your domestic foreign affairs office, would tell you that providing such information over the Internet is very risky, and highly inadvisable.

I spoke to a buddy of mine living in Dubai, and he said that the main form of commerce trading down there , was Wire Transfers...apparently, the city of the future does not have PayPal...

True.. there's never a 100% sure way to know. But it'd be pretty complicated for an abuser in Egypt to get their hands on a Texas license, for example. Not to mention their IP address would indicate they are in Egypt. In the end you have to use as much information as possible to see who you're dealing with. You won't catch them 100% of the time, but you can catch them 99% of the time if you put some effort into it.

I'm not so worried about abusers inside the US (those would be easy to track by IP, and prosecute, need be) but more worried about callshops in third world countries using stolen credentials to get free service. I know some of you guys have had bad experiences with those. VSPs like ViaTalk simply block out all international IP addresses to combat this problem. Personally I don't want to go that far, but if I see an IP coming from a third world country, there's no way they're getting on my service without a full investigation and assurance of who they are.

I agree this might drive some customers away, but in the end if you explain this to your customers they would understand. It's for their own good as it drives down costs and allows you to offer them cheaper service.

carrier Exchange has a money bank tranfer option. You can try that as well. I did not fax my credit card info for the same reason that you raised. You can reach out to your account manager for the bank information in Dubai.

I use my credit card(s) for all types of transactions online with no problems... Just try to remember what you use it for and if you are with a good bank they will have no problem reversing any charges that you didn't do yourself!

Paypal sucks, CC sucks, Moneybookers sucks, everybody sucks, but E-gold.

While it lasted, it was, for me, the perfect payment system, from the seller point of view.

No way to do a chargeback. But they seemed to bother banks (and Paypal) and they ended prosecuted. F..... off.