Many believe that credit card fraud is not something that businesses are being affected by. Unfortunately, this is just not the case. In the past few years, credit card identity theft has been claimed as the number one type of fraud reported by Americans. Personal credit card fraud is not the only one being hit; small and medium sized businesses are targeted, too.
The risk of fraud happening to a business credit card is just as great or greater than it is to personal credit cards, and it is often thought of as something that doesn’t happen, but it does. Here are some tips that will help safeguard your business from falling victim to credit card fraud.
Often, when a person or business experiences credit card fraud, it’s due to the fact that the card is not present for the transaction. Business credit card fraud can happen in a multitude of ways, including credit card cloning, skimming, and card-not-present fraud. These are such successful tactics employed to commit fraud because so much of most business’ purchases have moved online. To limit this exposure, never let your business credit card out of your sight. If you need to pay for something, rather than allowing a salesperson to take your card payment and come back with it after they have supposedly only processed the requested transaction, take the card directly to the salesperson at the point-of-sale system desk.
Although you may believe that only consumers may have more access to their credit reports, if you own a small business, you are still entitled to one free credit report for your business from each of the three major credit bureaus each year. Utilize this right to stay vigilant on keeping an eye out for fraud relating to your business. We recommend ordering one every four months from a different credit bureau to take advantage of these free credit reports.
Business credit cards can be issued for as many staffers as need access to the company account. In spite of the fact that allowing your staffers to have a corporate credit card makes doing business much easier when trusted employees have access to the funds they need, it can result in credit card fraud that may be difficult to resolve. Many employers give trusted employees a company credit card or access to the company credit card, but credit card abuse can happen even with the most entrusted employees. Sometimes this can look like the staffer taking cash advances out against the business credit card’s limit or even charging personal expenses to the business using the corporate credit card. In either circumstance, your small business is the one that takes on the financial burden of handling the losses. To limit this type of behavior, make sure that employees that have access to the company credit card return it immediately after their purchases are made. And, of course, have your back office be vigilant about scrutinizing the monthly bank statements for any unauthorized transactions performed with the company credit card(s).
While these steps can’t fully prevent credit card fraud involving your business credit cards, they can surely help limit your exposure to the risk and catch any suspicious activity early. Take precautions when it comes to the financial security of your small business by educating yourself and implementing measures that will make your business a smaller target.
LibertyID is the leader in identity theft restoration, having restored the identities of tens of thousands of individuals without fail. If you retain personal information on your customers, now it is the time to get data breach planning and a response program in place with our LibertyID for Small Business data breach preparation program. With LibertyID Enterprise you can now add value to existing products, services, or relationships by covering your customers, employees, or members with LibertyID’s fully managed identity theft restoration service—at a fraction of our retail price—with no enrollment and no file sharing. We have no direct communication with your group members–until they need us.
Call us now for a no obligation proposal at 844-411-LIBERTY (844-411-5423).