Online card fraud threat to small businesses

Many company owners have little or no experience of the contractual processes that can be involved in taking card payments online, it said.

Entrepreneurs can also end up covering the cost of fraud when apparently secure payment systems are breached. The forum said there had been a noticeable increase in calls to its member helpline about the subject.

Richard Bradley, of Accept Cards, the forum's adviser on merchant services, urged traders to scrutinise orders using statistics about payment.

"Minimising credit card fraud takes time but, above all, it is important to acquire an e-commerce payment gateway that is secure, using supplementary security modules provided by the major credit card companies,"

"Basically, these two features request an additional password to be entered along with the credit card details of the cardholder. Fraudsters will usually have only the name, address and credit card number, so using payment gateways that support these can be an effective way of minimising risk."

Mr Bradley said few business owners understand fully the processes involved in taking secure online card payments or realise that they can be left to cover the cost of fraud.