Vol. III #7 July 1999 by Henry Posner

Verification

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.

Verification at B&H is triggered by any of a number of tell-tales programmed into our order entry computer system. While the details must obviously 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 FedEx 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.

Some of you who frequent the rec.photo Usenet newsgroups have read this before, but it bears repeating. About 18 months ago, my wife's purse was stolen from a mid-Manhattan restaurant. The contents included cash, house keys, one credit card, her New York state driver's license (with photo) and a company-issued insurance ID card with her social security number. Less than one hour after the theft she notified the bank which had issued the credit card, but using her driver's license and social security number, the thieves were able to open so-called "Instant Credit" accounts or awaken long-dormant existing accounts in stores across a three-state region. In each and every instance accommodating store clerks overlooked the picture on the license, and, when using an existing account, failed to check the signature against store records. The thieves (who, store security cameras revealed, did not resemble my wife in any imaginable way) were not turned away a single time and eventually charged so much that the Secret Service became involved.

Thankfully, we weren't charged a dime in the end, but it took more than a solid week, doing nothing else, for us to clear the situation store by store, and reclaim what was left of our pillaged credit. To this day more than year later we're still on the mailing list for stores we've never been in, and one computer retailer still wants to know why we turned down their offer for an extended warranty on a system we've never seen. The fact that this happened mere weeks before we were due to close on a new home only added fuel to the conflagration.

Had even one store bothered to do the most rudimentary sort of check, had even one store embraced even the most basic sort of verification process, none of this might have taken place, and perhaps the people who did this and were never caught might have been arrested.

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, but having experienced the other side of credit fraud, I know from painful experience that the inconvenience of our verification process is a single raindrop in the ocean compared to the week-long ordeal we experienced repairing our financial lives.

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. From all of us, Thank you.