MivaPay > Prepaid Cards

[habreu]

Does anyone know if it is possible or desirable to disable prepaid cards? I have a guy who has been calling to use a prepaid card, gave me a long story about how he doesn't use computers so he can't enter in online and needs me to enter it and he only uses prepaid cards. He is interested in buying two of our most expensive locks and if they work ou going to buy more. My spidey-sense is ringing and I told him he has to enter it online but I can't help to think there is some sort of scam in the works. I wondered if via Miva, MivaPay or our Chase Orbital Gateway there is a way to block prepaid cards? We sell to businesses and this is abnormal.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

The side story about future purchases should things go well definitely raises an alarm with me; completely irrelevant outside of trying to convince you to do something you'd not have otherwise done. Certain payment gateways do support explicitly not accepting prepaid cards, and those features would work with or without MivaPay in the mix, it's just dependent on the gateway. I don't know that I've seen that as a feature on the store side, I believe it's something you set on the gateway side so the store just gets a decline; I'm going to ask around though to confirm.

[William Davis]

Does anyone know if it is possible or desirable to disable prepaid cards? I have a guy who has been calling to use a prepaid card, gave me a long story about how he doesn't use computers so he can't enter in online and needs me to enter it and he only uses prepaid cards. He is interested in buying two of our most expensive locks and if they work ou going to buy more. My spidey-sense is ringing and I told him he has to enter it online but I can't help to think there is some sort of scam in the works. I wondered if via Miva, MivaPay or our Chase Orbital Gateway there is a way to block prepaid cards? We sell to businesses and this is abnormal.

It might be a good idea to reach out to your merchant service provider and simply ask them for their opinion.

[habreu]

Thank you will do.

[ids]

Barring any other solution/restriction, you could have this "customer" purchase gift cards in your store where it could be your policy.

Scott

[habreu]

Barring any other solution/restriction, you could have this "customer" purchase gift cards in your store where it could be your policy.

Scott

His argument is he doesn't use computers so goes to his local store and buys the card for cash, then wants to do a phone order with me. If it is a scam of some sort we are bound to see more which is why I would just as soon block it and 'oops, sorry looks like our payment processors doesn't accept prepaid cards.'

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Confirmed pre-paid card blocking isn't exposed on the store side; if gateways even support that as a configurable per-transaction flag. So, it would have to be blocked on the processor side if you do intend to make that change. I'd be surprised if you saw much impact from such a block; whenever I get a pre-paid card for whatever reason, whether it's a gift, etc., I end up just immediately redeeming it for an amazon balance so I don't have to worry about the card expiring, maintenance fee, etc. I've never used one at a real store I purchase from.

[habreu]

I've been here 13 or so years and this is the first I know of - of course if they put them in themselves and there wasn't a problem I would never know. I may be wrong of course but it just smells like a scam - I just can't figure out how. The only thing I can figure is that if it is a scheme it involves chargebacks. From what I read while officially you can't do chargebacks on prepaids Visa in the interest of business will sometimes allow the card purchaser to do them and then the vendor may have little recourse because the card is not tied to a bank account. I'm guessing many vendors would just let it go as chasing them down would be a lot of work.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

I think the biggest flag to me is...he doesn't use computers. That means, even if a legit customer, he's going to be a hassle to deal with. if you have a "phone order" department...send him there and don't let him be your headache. You operate an online business.

[habreu]

Yeah he wants to order by phone, he just triggered every warning bell. Doesn't use computer, prepaid cards, wanted me to test his card because he didn't think he had enough money on it, wanted to buy two of the most expensive disc locks then said he'd be buying more two at a time for 11 locations. Could be legit but I haven't run into any self-storage chains doing this. But you are right. Even though he was polite he ate up a lot of my time on two phone calls and has me thinking about it after he hung up. Now that he knows my name he'll be asking for me each time too. :/

[wmgilligan]

I agree with the latest - this one sounds like a scam.
That said - we accept prepaid cards (and crypto). After a lot of research it turns out that many many many people use prepaid for any number of reasons: Gift Cards, no bank account, employer pays that way, privacy, etc etc - that is why there are so many at the stores.

Also for the record, our system (orangemailer.co) uses Strip to process cards. Stripe does allow for blocking pre-paid when using their "radar for teams".
Bill

[habreu]

I agree with the latest - this one sounds like a scam.
That said - we accept prepaid cards (and crypto). After a lot of research it turns out that many many many people use prepaid for any number of reasons: Gift Cards, no bank account, employer pays that way, privacy, etc etc - that is why there are so many at the stores.

Also for the record, our system (orangemailer.co) uses Strip to process cards. Stripe does allow for blocking pre-paid when using their "radar for teams".
Bill

I checked the Orbital gateway and didn't see a setting we could use ourselves and didn't see a way to get a report of any prepaid usage. I have no way of knowing if anyone is currently using prepaids and entering the order themselves as you suggest. I guess maybe I will just wait and see.

Thanks everyone.