Why IP-Geolocation is the Best Prevention for CNP Fraud Infestation

They say that prevention is better than a cure. Well, if you’re asking online merchants, they aren’t so sure.

“By 2030, when total payment card volume is expected to hit a whopping $79.14 trillion worldwide, Nilson predicts the industry will lose an estimated $49.32 billion to fraud, plus $180 billion in chargebacks. CNP crime accounted for almost  7 in 10 fraud losses to merchants and acquirers in 2020, totaling $19.43 billion worldwide. Merchants added to their expenses in 2020 by continuing “the practice of manually reviewing questionable CNP sales, particularly as the average value of those purchases grew throughout the year,” Nilson reported.”

What’s CNP crime, and how can IP-Geolocation help fight against it?

“Card-not-present fraud (CNP fraud) is when someone makes a purchase with a debit or credit card online without the permission of the legitimate card owner. According to the Merchant Risk Council, fraudsters already have the information they need to make a purchase from more than 80% of the credit cards in existence.”

The first and most important line of defense for online businesses from these types of payment frauds is IP-Geolocation.

Detecting fraudulent IPs is a must to prevent fraud losses.

If you want to prevent chargebacks then you have to do a lot of customer data collection tasks, such as email addresses, credit cards CVV codes, billing addresses, the devices used to log in, phone numbers, etc. This can be time-consuming and to make things worse annoying for the customers you want to treat respectfully.

A fake IP address is the first red flag for any online business

How does IP-Geolocation work? Well, that’s a no-brainer:

“Website visitors are identifiable on websites by their IP address. Everyone on the Internet is assigned an IP address to enable communication between their computer and other online machines such as web servers. Using that IP address, websites can query geolocation database or API to get info such as the visitor’s country, region, city, latitude, longitude and so much more.”

But, what about my privacy? I have some privacy concerns.

Well, when I want to do business or buy, I have no need to hide.

Here’s how IP2Location does it in a quick and non-intrusive way:

It goes without saying that digital credibility is a two-way street. More importantly, it’s important and it works on both corporate and individual levels.

Just as my clients can request to work with freelancers from specific locations, I have every right to make sure I’m investing my time in providing services to legit businesses.

We all know and accept that the future of work is remote, but there’s a catch. It’s all about - LOCATION. Based on location, prices are determined and trust is built. The moment VPNs and proxies step into the remote workspace, the whole industry is compromised.

My point is that you don’t have to be an online store to become a victim of chargebacks and stolen credit cards. More than once I’d worked for free because of chargebacks. It turned out that I was dealing with allegedly “payment-verified” clients. Every single freelance platform has a chargeback section in its terms of service, and I don’t blame them. What I do mind, though, is the fact that they didn’t do their due diligence in verifying clients’ IP addresses thoroughly as they’re doing it with freelancers.

IP-Geolocation isn’t rocket science and doesn’t cost a fortune, especially when you compare it with the astronomical losses I mentioned at the beginning of my story.

So, to wrap it up, IP-Geolocation rhymes with fraud prevention - perfectly.