[TowerTalk] Cheesy Credit Card Policies

[Guy Olinger, K2AV]

No, actually it's not the credit card company, it's the merchant who
gets stiffed by someone who gets away with a sweet one. You can bet that
the credit card company, by some device or another, is NOT the one
paying for the loss.

Gerald's policy has to do with nothing more than the number of crooks in
the world, and the fact that they all sound nice over the phone, or in
person wear a nice suit and remind you of your wonderful neighbor back
in Iowa. You CAN'T tell the good guys over the phone. You can only tell
the good guys from good experience with them, and sometimes not even
then.

What the simple fact is, that a single fraudulent transaction nails the
merchant for the shipping, and the wholesale cost of the unit, plus his
cost in handling. This can be as much as the profit for 10 to 20 units.
Insurance (ha, ha...) for situations like this for commercial firms is
incredible, IF you can get it.

If you run a discounting, tight margin operation like Gerald, the sting
is all the stiffer.

Take some of those stings, and you WILL do something about the losses on
the card transactions. Or go out of business.

Basically only two choices to deal with them: 1) raise prices to cover
the expected level of loss, which means you who go to the company that
doesn't hassle about the card, pay a pro-rata (in the price) to cover
all the thefts. Or 2) analyze what the patterns are that relate to the
credit card fraud, and refuse to get involved.

Gerald's prices are still low. He obviously chose option 2). What was
that about walking a mile in their shoes...

One way (not the only one) the credit card alternate delivery scam
works: Scammer gets ahold of a credit card and expiration date that
belongs to someone else. He wants to get something off the internet, or
over the phone. Obviously you can't have it sent to the billing address
of the rightful owner of the card. HOWEVER, particularly these days, you
can find a LOT of information about people over the net, including that
he's a ham, and can probably work a scam using radio equipment OK, he
talks to a fence and finds out what kind of radio equipment can be
fenced. Fine. He calls up with a credit card, drops some ham radio talk,
including call sign, etc (which he got off QRZ.com) and has it sent to a
"work address" arranged by the fence. By the time the transaction is
reported by the credit card holder as fraudulent, the unit and the "work
address" is long gone.

The way one takes care that an alternate destination scam is never used
on one's own card is to declare one's OWN alternate destination.  No one
will be talked into a scam alternate address when the card company's
alternate shipping field is already filled with a different address.

Disclaimer: No relationship to Texas Towers of any kind except satisfied
customer.

- - . . .   . . . - -     .   . . .     - - .   . - . .

73, Guy
k2av@contesting.com
Apex, NC, USA

----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Champlin <w0hh@grapevine.net>
To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2000 7:21 PM
Subject: [TowerTalk] Cheesy Credit Card Policies


>
> I have never had any trouble with T. Tower. However, I did run into
the
> same cheesy credit card policy here locally. I wanted to buy an
antenna
> and send it to another address where I wished to erect it. The guy
told
> me that I had to call the card issuer and notify them where the
> merchandise would be. This guy was obviously following VISA's
> old-fashioned finance company's policy to the letter. Evidently VISA
was
> scared to death you would charge something they couldn't come and get!
> This was my last credit card purchase from ham dealers. I now use my
> debit card or  a Check. If it's a big item, like my Alpha, I
e-transfer
> the money to their bank. With a Visa logo bank debit card, the
argument
> could be made that it's my money and comes directly from my bank
> account.
> Most people these days don't have the time to be hassled, especially
by
> some high interest money lender. Just my opinion, and yes I know what

> opinions are like!
> 73, Tom W0HH
>
>
> --
> FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/towertalkfaq.html
> Submissions:              towertalk@contesting.com
> Administrative requests:  towertalk-REQUEST@contesting.com
> Problems:                 owner-towertalk@contesting.com
> Search:                   http://www.contesting.com/km9p/search.htm
>
>


--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/towertalkfaq.html
Submissions:              towertalk@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  towertalk-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-towertalk@contesting.com
Search:                   http://www.contesting.com/km9p/search.htm