Getting started 13: Fraud: with NoFraud and without it

Chapter 13 of 15 of Getting Started with Trinity, by Brad Bussell, 2AData. Also on the web at www.2adata.com/getting-started.

NoFraud

Fraud on a firearms store is not about guns. A firearm goes to an FFL who checks the buyer's identity, so stolen cards almost never buy guns. They buy optics. Leupold, Trijicon, Holosun, thermal and night vision, $400 to $2,000 an order, shipped to a house. We have seen the pattern on our own store: a run of orders in two weeks from brand new GunBroker accounts with stolen cards, all for premium optics, and a website order for a high end watch that shipped and charged back.

What the platform does on every store

• Address and security code checks on every card, with the result on the order page.
• A pause after repeated declines from the same shopper, which stops card testing.
• Hidden trap fields on the account, dealer application and contact forms that only robots fill in.
• GunBroker buyer gates: a brand new or zero feedback account buying $200 or more of optics, lights, thermal or night vision is held for a human, every time, even if a screening service passed it.
• Holds. A held order does not ship until you decide on the order page, with one exception: if you use NoFraud and it clears an order it had held for review, that order goes back to pending on its own and is processed like any other order. A hold you set yourself stays until you release it.
• Fail closed. If a screening service is turned on and does not answer, the order is held, not shipped.

If you use NoFraud

NoFraud screens website card orders that do not need an FFL, in real time, and either passes them, flags them for review or fails them. It does not screen a customer who already has a paid order more than 90 days old and no chargeback or fraud mark on record, it never screens a phone order keyed in the admin, and on GunBroker it screens only accessory orders from buyers with fewer than ten feedbacks. A pass comes with a chargeback guarantee under NoFraud's terms. On our own store it screens every website order without a firearm and every GunBroker order from a new buyer; in 90 days it flagged 10 orders and we cancelled 5 for fraud. It costs a fee per screened order; get current pricing from NoFraud. A few of our dealers run it with their own keys; most do not yet.

To turn it on: sign up with NoFraud, get your API key, open NoFraud in your admin (left menu), enter the key and enable it. From then on it screens website card orders without an FFL item, except from a customer with a paid order at least 90 days old and no chargeback or fraud flag on file, and GunBroker orders without a firearm from new buyers. A fail at checkout voids the charge and no order is created; you get an email. See the order page's NoFraud badge for the verdict on each order.

1. Your NoFraud API key
2. Turn screening on; every non FFL card order is screened from then on

If you do not

Then you are the screen. The platform's checks still hold the obvious cases. Review the rest yourself before shipping, with these as the signals that matter:

• The street address did not verify (the card's bank says the address does not match).
• Billing and shipping names differ, or the name does not match the email.
• Optics, lights or thermal over $200, shipped to a residence, from a customer with no order history.
• A GunBroker account younger than 30 days or with fewer than ten feedbacks on a high value accessory.
• Rush requests, odd hours, a free email address on a new account.

When in doubt, call the customer at the billing phone number. A real customer answers. A thief does not. And if you are wrong, you lose a sale; if you ship, you lose the item, the shipping and whatever chargeback fee your merchant account charges, and your processor starts to watch you.

Previous: MAP notices: what to expect. Next: It takes time.

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