Hi,

This is my list of "Fraud problem countries":


Lithuania
Russia
Romania
Belarus
Indonesia
Macedonia
Yugoslavia
Malaysia
Ukraine
Hungary
Nigeria
Slovak Republic
Bulgaria
Austria
Pakistan
Egypt
Latvia
Estonia
Colombia
Turkey
Israel
Thailand
Singapore
Ghana


I need your comments, is this list complete enough, are there any countries in there that you think should not be there, etc.


Thanks in advance,
Peter

What the?

Where these countries came on?

Belarus, Slovak Republic, Latvia

They look like taken from Command and Conquer game or some type of science fiction planetary movie. I better go back and study geography again.

You should include Vietnam and Phillipines as commented around these and other forums. Most are from Asia.

;)

What the?

Where these countries came on?

Belarus, Slovak Republic, Latvia


FYI ; All these countries in eastern europe :)

Yeah!, I know. Just a joke.

The problem is keeping track of them after the Soviet Union split up.

Austria

I think you spelt it wrong. Isn't it "Australia"?

I think you spelt it wrong. Isn't it "Australia"?

No I didn't. Below are my sources.


http://www.cartserver.com/americart/faq-fr.html

http://www.auctionusers.org/newsletter/0106-intl-cc-warning.shtml

http://www.windowsix.com/Controlling_Online_Credit_Card_Fraud.html

http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol61/efraud.htm

Thanks,
Peter

Is Austria, that´s on Europe.

I´ll be back!

Originally posted by UmBillyCord


I think you spelt it wrong. Isn't it "Australia"?



these americans are really too funny.

Geez, I was joking. I just wanted to see how fast I would get flamed from some Aussies for confusing the two. :)

What's an australia?

I would definately remove Singapore from the list. I have a handful of clients from Singapore, not a single one fraudulent.

Unless id o not get this post:

What countries have to do with it? It is some peple in those countries just as there are people who comite frud in USA.

Why Israel ?
Im from Israel, and I know many people besides me that pay for hosting with their CC
Did you have any problem with people from Israel ? (im going next week to provide hosting services in the Israeli market, that kind of info will help me :D )

Im from mexico...
what about mexico?
we are always in blacklist
:uzi:
:flamethr:

USA :)

BTW, we have much more fraud orders from the US than from Russia

A wise man's quote

Originally posted by AceWeb
Unless id o not get this post:

What countries have to do with it? It is some peple in those countries just as there are people who comite frud in USA.

Have you, from your experience been cheated by people from the blacklisted countries? I hear horror stories about the USA from friends returning home after staying there a couple of years, so do I believed everything they say? NO.

If you want to do business internationally/globally there's no such thing as a perfect deal, most are good apples and some are bad, so fraud could come from anywhere and from any country. Very soon you will be blacklisting China and India, etc. where the bulk of the world population resides.

From your perception of business, in my opinion it's a very shallow and narrow business attitude probably international business is not for you. Maybe a grocery store dealing with who's who in your neighbourhood would be fine.

I am from Malaysia and spent some $400/= every month buying things from the Internet and business expenses that I have to pay to continue maintaining an Internet presence without any problems. Malaysia has a population of approx 25 million people and from statistics, there are over 1 million registered Internet users and increasing everyday by the hundreds and most are like me where we know there is a certain element of risk even how secure the Internet may be just like any normal business. When we Malaysians get cheated, do we complained ? No. So what's the fuss?

I've noticed a rising trend from companies chooisng to create ALLOW lists instead of DENY lists. This is even something major software and computer vendors online are doing. I suppose you figure out which countries are a good source of users vs fraud and allow only those countries in. Then you can add more if you get requests but you don't have to filter through the hundreds of possible countries and try to remember who you dont like,

Pakistan ? Thats pure b/s. We, as a credit card processor, get thousands of transactions from Pakistan alone and many more from your 'so-called' list of blacklist countries. Not one transaction so far has been fradulent.

Originally posted by cactus
A wise man's quote

:D :D :D

Originally posted by poncho2000
Hi,

This is my list of "Fraud problem countries":


Lithuania
Russia
Romania
Belarus
Indonesia
Macedonia
Yugoslavia
Malaysia
Ukraine
Hungary
Nigeria
Slovak Republic
Bulgaria
Austria
Pakistan
Egypt
Latvia
Estonia
Colombia
Turkey
Israel
Thailand
Singapore
Ghana


I need your comments, is this list complete enough, are there any countries in there that you think should not be there, etc.


Thanks in advance,
Peter

hmm think about this...if you were to combine the number of internet users in those countries and compare them to the number of online internet users in the US, that have the tendency to commit fraud, which would you say has more fraudsters?

mind you, the US & Canada alone has about 180+million internet users ( http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online/index.html ). I'm willing to bet that the number of users of those countries are not even comparable to the US. Put into the equation a % assumption of fraudsters then you will see what I'm talking about.

i think you're better off to just put US in your list and that'll do it :D

what you must realise is that there are fraudsters everywhere. what if a fraudster from one of the countries you listed above connected to a http proxy on a country not on list?

Originally posted by megagente
What the?

Where these countries came on?

Belarus, Slovak Republic, Latvia

They look like taken from Command and Conquer game or some type of science fiction planetary movie. I better go back and study geography again.

You should include Vietnam and Phillipines as commented around these and other forums. Most are from Asia.

;)

I'm from Vietnam, tell me why you're including Vietnam,Here's my story: We've developed a online phone card store for a Vietnamese located in USA, and in the first time, we got much fraud card, all of them are from young americans(under 18 yrs old), finally we decide using CVV2 to prevent our store. So I believe almost fraud card is form young people over the world including USA, that's honest!

Originally posted by ZMN


I'm from Vietnam, tell me why you're including Vietnam,Here's my story: We've developed a online phone card store for a Vietnamese located in USA, and in the first time, we got much fraud card, all of them are from young americans(under 18 yrs old), finally we decide using CVV2 to prevent our store. So I believe almost fraud card is form young people over the world including USA, that's honest!

When companies decide to ban countries it is not because of the lack of good people in that nation but because the over all % of fraud THEY have incurred or seen others incur from those countries. While one company may get 50 legit orders from country X, another person may get 2 legit orders and 4 bad ones and thus decide to block the country (just an example).

Fraud should be something you evaluate on a case-by-case basis. Just because Joe's Hosting said go block country x and y because they had fraud doesn’t mean that (a) you cant prevent that fraud (b) they are telling the truth or (c) you will get the same level of fraud from that country. In truth, only time and bad experiences will tell you what any nation will TRULY give you. Granted you can take common lists and recommendations but you may very well cut yourself out of some legitimate orders and not stop that much fraud... on the other hand you may cut it all down.

My point (i think there is a useful one) is simply to understand that fraud is something you want to balance on your own. If you decide to start a company that bans 15 nations, build a method into your system to record whenever someone tries to order from that nation so you can evaluate the possible loss/preventions. If you want to trust other hosts to tell you the list of countries they block, realize you are cutting corners in a way that may make you loose business. Finally, if you're really that worried about fraud limit yourself to local countries and inst on mailing passwords to users... you'll get far far far less sign ups but 99% will be legit.

It's all a matter of what kind of hosting you want to run and whom you want to get. If you want big sites run by knowledgeable webmasters, the more the merrier, if you want local businesses that you charge far more and give a personal level of service to then ban a lot more people....

Thanks to everybody that answered my questions.
I didn't say that I'm going to block all the countries in the list I compiled.
I clearly pointed my sources for this list and I just wanted your opinion.
Don't take this thread too personal, it's just a business. If one country has high % of fraudulent orders then I don't want to deal with this country and I'm OK with loosing all the legit orders coming from there. There will be always people complaining that it's not fair to ban a country, because of the high risk of fraud, but this is my business decision.

Thanks,
Peter

Originally posted by poncho2000
Hungary
Slovak Republic
Austria
Israel
Singapore


I would remove these countries from your list.
We never experienced fraud from this ones and they are all high tech countries, too...

Thanks Walter.

I would remove these countries from your list.
We never experienced fraud from this ones and they are all high tech countries, too...

Originally posted by ^Kyo
Pakistan ? Thats pure b/s. We, as a credit card processor, get thousands of transactions from Pakistan alone and many more from your 'so-called' list of blacklist countries. Not one transaction so far has been fradulent.


Maybe because the host blocks the "fradulent" order before you even see it? :rolleyes:

Originally posted by the elf



Maybe because the host blocks the "fradulent" order before you even see it? :rolleyes:


99% of our clients dont.

Originally posted by ^Kyo



99% of our clients dont.

%99 don't what? Get "fradulent" orders? And if they did, how would you know??

The host gets's the order
Checks the order
If fake, deletes the order
Note: The order never even hit you yet!

I don't think the host would contact you, since you can't do anything about it. You only see the orders the host allows to go though (99% legit). I'm sure the host has more then what they submit i.e. the fake orders.

The only way you would know, is if the host in fact did know the order was fake, and submitted it anyway. I don't think they would, because it just wastes there time.

Again - I love it when hosts block whole countries, more customers for lil old me :)

There is no need to actually block anyone. You can just redirect visitors from certain countries to a signup page that asks for a faxed copy of the credit card and a photo ID such as passport or driver's licence. If it's a fraudster they won't even bother filling out the form. Some legit users may get turned off as well but it's better than blocking a whole country.

Originally posted by the elf


%99 don't what? Get "fradulent" orders? And if they did, how would you know??

The host gets's the order
Checks the order
If fake, deletes the order
Note: The order never even hit you yet!

I don't think the host would contact you, since you can't do anything about it. You only see the orders the host allows to go though (99% legit). I'm sure the host has more then what they submit i.e. the fake orders.

The only way you would know, is if the host in fact did know the order was fake, and submitted it anyway. I don't think they would, because it just wastes there time.

Um why would the host not contact us ? We're their payment processor :eek: You seem pretty confident about your self here. Are you the one running our company or is our staff the people who see the actual orders? :rolleyes:

I have personally assisted most of our clients with the integration of HC into their website, I know which use order filters and which dont. Furthermore we fullfil the aspect of fraud verification on their behalf without them requiring to do anything.

Asher.

Someone should ban the U.S.A. Now THAT would be something!

Originally posted by Skeptical
Someone should ban the U.S.A. Now THAT would be something!

:D

BTW, Latvia is a Baltic country not really "Eastern Europe".

:)

Originally posted by ^Kyo


Um why would the host not contact us ? We're their payment processor :eek: You seem pretty confident about your self here. Are you the one running our company or is our staff the people who see the actual orders? :rolleyes:

I have personally assisted most of our clients with the integration of HC into their website, I know which use order filters and which dont. Furthermore we fullfil the aspect of fraud verification on their behalf without them requiring to do anything.

Asher.
You still missed the whole "the order never hit you yet".

Why the hell would I want to run your company for?? Your staff only sees the orders the host submits. Simple as that, so, saying "Pakistan ? Thats pure b/s." is out of line, because you don't have any knowledge of fake orders other then whats submitted.

I don't think every single host forces the customer to submit credit card info. By force, I mean process the info. If the host wants to reduce "fradulent" orders, all they have to do is make a single phone call, then process the credit card. Most hosts do make the phone call, so like I said before, your out of the loop & don't have any knowledge of the bad order. For me, its not worth my time to submit such orders nor report the credit card numbers, I just add that class C to the blacklist.

What can you do when somebody submits an order with a fake info?? Nothing. You can't do anymore then the host can. In fact, the host can do more by banning the IP and/or posting the info *here* where other hosts can see it.

P.S.

By fake info I mean bad credit card info i.e. stolen etc.

You dont seem to understand my post at all. I meant -- you seem to be talking as if you're the one running our company and as if we dont know whats going on. Like I said before, 99% of our clients do not use any filters. Most of our clients are new / startup hosts who arent experienced enough to handle such stuff and yes they email me personally to help them out with fraud filters. But most know that its not required since we do all the fraud scrubbing stuff. They also dont want to loose valid orders by blocking countries.

A bit of deep thinking would reveal this:

We receive orders from such countries in the first place because they arent blocked to begin with!

We do catch a lot of fake orders and they originate mostly from United States from 'kiddie hackers' who manage to get their hands on other peoples credit card numbers. Many a times has our FV dept called up card holders to report abuse of their cards.

My point in posting what I posted was that the topic starter himself has no first hand experience with those countries. Where as we do and it is tried and tested.


Asher.

Originally posted by ^Kyo
You dont seem to understand my post at all. I meant -- you seem to be talking as if you're the one running our company and as if we dont know whats going on. Like I said before, 99% of our clients do not use any filters. Most of our clients are new / startup hosts who arent experienced enough to handle such stuff and yes they email me personally to help them out with fraud filters. But most know that its not required since we do all the fraud scrubbing stuff. They also dont want to loose valid orders by blocking countries.

A bit of deep thinking would reveal this:

We receive orders from such countries in the first place because they arent blocked to begin with!

We do catch a lot of fake orders and they originate mostly from United States from 'kiddie hackers' who manage to get their hands on other peoples credit card numbers. Many a times has our FV dept called up card holders to report abuse of their cards.

My point in posting what I posted was that the topic starter himself has no first hand experience with those countries. Where as we do and it is tried and tested.


Asher.

You know what's going on with *99%* of the orders. How the hell would you know about a order that your customer never told you about nor was processed? I would like to know that! :rolleyes:

I'm talking as a web host telling you there are more orders then what I submit to be processed, I have the orders hanging on my wall right now. Did my processor get them, no! They don't even know about them!

I don't think you understand the term "the order never hit you yet". How can your company "filter" orders if the order was never submiited?? You keep going on about "We receive orders", the point I'm trying to make, is that you never got the order yet, never got the order yet.

My point in posting what I posted was that the topic starter himself has no first hand experience with those countries. Where as we do and it is tried and tested.

The host has more "first hand experience" then you so before you make yourself out to look like a fool, you better rethink that. He wanted to know where most of the bad orders come from, and he hit the nail on the head, as did other posters.

As a host myself, I see lots of fake orders come in so I have more "first hand experience" with bad orders then you would. Why? Because I only *allow* good orders to pass. The bad orders get stopped before you even see them.

I'll say it again, the only way you would know of a fake order, is if the host forced the credit card to be processed before services or a single "hello, did you order it" call was made. Not every host "forces" the order to be submitted and the ones that do, are your only "record" of bad submitted orders.

I find it funny you think your company knows about every single order the host has. Even if the order was never submitted to you. Maybe I should remove HC from my list of companies to switch to once the volume of credit cards orders grows (I mostly do MO/Checks).

EDIT: Removed "don't" to make point.

Originally posted by the elf


You don't know what's going on with *99%* of the orders. How the hell would you know about a order that your customer never told you about nor was processed? I would like to know that! :rolleyes:

I'm talking as a web host telling you there are more orders then what I submit to be processed, I have the orders hanging on my wall right now. Did my processor get them, no! They don't even know about them!

I don't think you understand the term "the order never hit you yet". How can your company "filter" orders if the order was never submiited?? You keep going on about "We receive orders", the point I'm trying to make, is that you never got the order yet, never got the order yet.



The host has more "first hand experience" then you so before you make yourself out to look like a fool, you better rethink that. He wanted to know where most of the bad orders come from, and he hit the nail on the head, as did other posters.

As a host myself, I see lots of fake orders come in so I have more "first hand experience" with bad orders then you would. Why? Because I only *allow* good orders to pass. The bad orders get stopped before you even see them.

I'll say it again, the only way you would know of a fake order, is if the host forced the credit card to be processed before services or a single "hello, did you order it" call was made. Not every host "forces" the order to be submitted and the ones that do, are your only "record" of bad submitted orders.

I find it funny you think your company knows about every single order the host has. Even if the order was never submitted to you. Maybe I should remove HC from my list of companies to switch to once the volume of credit cards orders grows (I mostly do MO/Checks).

*Sigh*, I am not going to argue with you. Your rude remarks do not even justify a response from me. And yes by all means remove HC from your list of firms to switch to.

Asher.

Originally posted by ^Kyo


*Sigh*, I am not going to argue with you. Your rude remarks do not even justify a response from me. And yes by all means remove HC from your list of firms to switch to.

Asher.

Rude or not, it's the truth.

Ouch! I am from Singapore and it sure hurts to know that it is listed in here.

Prior to coming to WHT, I had numerous bad experiences with US web hosts. Took my money and gave me nothing.

I think that statistics are statistics, it is probably a few individuals which are black sheeps. I still believe that the majority are still honest.

Incidentally, selling my shareware, the majority of the fraud orders are from the US as compared to the other countries.

LOL, thats why I only have clients which I can sue, right here in America (also the fbi can get em...not that they ever do...hehe:stickout )

Well
I would have Egypt on the list.
Had several fake orders from there and no real ones.

Singapore, lots of real orders and never a problem.
Romania, ditto (and I know thats not most peoples experience)
Thailand, ditto
Mexico, ditto

Israel, 50/50, still accepting orders from there but only because
we have a few good customers there.

The rate of frauds from within the US is increasing.
I tracked one down to a Veterans Hospital.
Does anyone remember the A-Team ?

Gordon

There was another thread about this subject a while back. Most were dissapointed with local governments, webmasters and ISP's who would not reply to allegations of credit card fraud. I'm sure the majority of people in the above mentioned countries are honest, but I guess most business owners feel more comfortable dealing with countries where they know that ISPs and local police will react to credit card fraud.

Even though once credit card fraud has been comitted there is little one can do afterwards, most people are still under the impression that in certain western countries you will likely have more legal recourse than in a poorer country with vague, unenforceable local laws and political instability.

Originally posted by dreamrae.com
LOL, thats why I only have clients which I can sue, right here in America (also the fbi can get em...not that they ever do...hehe:stickout )


Thats right. I never deal with backwater governments.(Not saying that all countrys have backwater governments) If I can not get them in jain for fraud, I will not deal with them.

plz remove malaysia as so far as i know I host most of the malaysia client over 100 all are ok! 100%:confused:

since a year in business ...
i removed this countries from my order page already.

countries in order!!

(* with all respect for honest ppl live in this countries *)

%90 or more of orders from this countries have a charge backs .. stolen credits:
Indonisa ( for SPAM and IRC )
Pakistan
Israel


about %20 of orders are by stolen cards:
Singapore
Hong Kong
Thailand
VietNam


Russian countries always have problems with adult materials, child porn, ...

this ratios based on about 4000 orders in total since Jan 2002