VERIFICATION DEPARTMENTOne of the smallest departments in B&H Photo-Video is our Verification Department. Based on the e-mail we receive it's also one of our least understood. Since too many of our mail-order customers seem not to understand what it's for and why it's necessary, we thought this explanation in order. The Verification Department's only task is to determine that the person calling us to use your credit card is, in fact, you. It's always been relatively simple for even the least imaginative individual to browse through one's trash and pick up a valid credit card number and most of us probably recall news stories during the past decade of equally unscrupulous people collecting carbons of card forms from the trash of restaurants and
retail shops. With the advent of online ordering and the swift increase in international transactions via credit card, the problem of security has increased exponentially. According to the Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse (www.consumer.gov/idtheft/) of the Federal Trade Commission (www.ftc.gov/) more than half of all forms of identity theft are credit card fraud. They also report that the average victim will spend $808.00 and 175 hours to right their name. The rate of identity theft has reached about 750,000 people per year. These figures are for the USA. Reports are that the situation in Europe, Asia and the mid-East may be worse. Verification at B&H is triggered by any of a number of tell-tales programmed into our order entry computer system. While the details obviously must remain confidential, some might include changes in buying patterns -- a particularly large purchase after a series of smaller ones, or a new ship-to address after numerous orders to an established one. Now, no one's suggesting that a customer with a new job shouldn't use that new locale to get an order, and no one's suggesting that a customer who's finally outgrown his Nikon 2020 shouldn't order a gleaming new F5. What we are suggesting is that the person who gets the stuff should be the person who's paying for it -- you. It's far too simple nowadays for some pirate to get his (or her) hands on your card number, expiration date, and home address and phone us up, order a whole bunch of stuff and give us his address as your new ship-to address, or tell us you've moved and change your address, or (having scouted your neighborhood and learned that no one's home during the day) requested overnight delivery. He'd then spend an hour raking your leaves 'til the UPS truck pulls up, sign for that shiny new toy, wait until the driver
pulled around the corner and off he'd go. No one'd be the wiser until your bill came at the end of the month. Retailers are granted the right to accept credit cards from banks. The agreement that permits a retailer to accept any particular card includes provisions that the shop accepting the card demonstrate a certain level of security. Too many complaints of inaccuracy, too many reports that a shop accepts unverified cards, too many chargebacks, and the shop's ability to accept that type of card is jeopardized. Some banks even reward stores and individual employees who catch bad cards. Sure, we're protecting ourselves. If the pirate I mentioned above is driving off with a camcorder and DVD player charged to your card, you'll call us when the bill comes in and complain to your bank. We won't have the merchandise or the money. Expenses will go up, profits will plummet. Nothing good will come of it. We're also protecting you in a couple of ways. First, and I admit this helps us as much as it does you, is the
benefit of being able to use the card of your choice here. If we fail to stop thieves and Visa (for instance) says we can't accept charges on their cards, you might be inconvenienced and possibly aggravated. Second, if the expenses I just mentioned do go up, we'd eventually have to reevaluate our prices, and no one wants that. The chief benefit to you though is that our security assures you that the possibility that you will be a victim of card theft or identity fraud is minimized. We don't use verification procedures to annoy, intimidate or inconvenience our customers, but for protection -- ours and yours. We understand that it's irksome to wait another few minutes on the phone, or to be asked to phone us back. The small and momentary inconvenience is, we feel, a pittance compared to the difficulty in repairing a credit history sundered by one pirate's act of malicious theft. We're glad when you call, fax, or e-mail us and glad to accept your credit card as payment. We're resigned to the fact that a small number of callers are not honest people, and we've learned to accept the inconvenience just as we've come to accept metal detectors in airports. No one wants them, but no one wants the alternative either. We appreciate your business, and in the very few instances when your order is sent though our Verification Department, we appreciate your patient assistance.
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