Tag Archives: credit card authorization form

Hotel Third Party Authorization Form Alert

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The best hotel third party authorization forms are fully compliant with card brand rules to mitigate chargeback risk, especially for friendly fraud, where cardholder claims they did not authorize the transaction. Fraud liability can be shifted nearly one hundred percent with best practices, plus risk of data breach from employee and other access to card data can be mitigated. Avoid the paper and digital credit card authorization form problems perpetuated by misinformation from people and incorrect internet postings.

Paper credit card authorization forms are dead.

Per Visa Core rule 5.4.2.5, October 2017, a US merchant or its agent must not Request the Card Verification Value 2 data on any paper Order Form. Update, in October 2018, the rule is now in section 5.4.3.1, Merchant Use of Account Number, Cardholder Signature, Card Verification Value 2 (CVV2), or Stored Credential.  I could go on about all the PCI compliance and data breach risk problems related to credit card authorization forms, but because only 3-D secure cardholder authentication, which requires cardholder initiate payment, shifts friendly fraud liability for card not present transactions, there’s no valid reason not to change procedures. Get the cardholder data out of the hands of employees and networks. Secure document services where sensitive cardholder data can be viewed, or decrypted and viewed, for use in another solution are not PCI Compliant.

Web-based third party authorization forms are best for card absent compliance.

More than just PCI compliance, a myriad of rules changes since 2017, and continuing into 2019, impact every hotel. Everyone must change to comply and it’s not automatic. For example, you’re getting a sales deposit, and will definitely or will possibly charge more later. There’s a new set of transaction data standards which include estimate, incremental, and final authorization. While the technical piece is handled by payment gateways, not all have made the modifications required. Additionally, some elements are left to merchants to manage.

  • Comply with Visa 5.8.3.1 Authorization Amount Requirements.  The Merchant must use the Estimated/Initial Authorization Request indicator for the first transaction,
    then the Incremental Authorization Request indicator for interim if applicable, and Final Authorization Request indicator when closing out the transaction; the same Transaction Identifier must be included for all Authorization Requests. Don’t accept an authorization online and then swipe or dip the same card later unless your card present system can tie back to the initial authorization.
  • Stored cards. Are you storing cards for ongoing charges? Comply with Visa Rules Table 5-20: Requirements for Prepayments and Transactions Using Stored Credentials. There are too many variables to list here so I recommend downloading the rules and getting familiar. Two keys when capturing card data for the first time:
    • Obtain express consent per specifications for your refund and cancellation policies, how you’ll use the stored card, when your agreement expires and how the Cardholder will be notified of any changes to the agreement.
    • Perform a cardholder verification either via transaction or zero dollar authorization with the proper indicator.
    • This is a change! Two transactions occur when capturing cardholder data for the first time. Again, technical part can be handled by a payment gateway that supports it, but other elements are left to you.

Hotel third party authorization form solutions.

Contact me for solution that works standalone or integrated with SynXis. Shift friendly fraud liability and potentially qualify transactions for better rates with your existing merchant account. That’s because non-compliance with various rules can result in higher fees.

Here’s some key elements if the initial authorization is not the final authorization. Terminology:

  • PCI compliance- short for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. All businesses are mandated to comply with rules which are outlined on the PCI Security Standards Council web site.
  • 3-D secure (3D Secure) is a global XML-based protocol designed to be an additional security layer for online credit and debit card transactions. Each card brand has their own version. For example, Verified by Visa. Merchants register for 3-D Secure with their acquirer; always consult with the payment gateway first for instructions and to confirm they’re registered to offer service. 3-D Secure is invoked automatically by the payment gateway which then based on issuer response may or may not prompt for additional information to authenticate the cardholder.  Friendly fraud liability, “it wasn’t me, I didn’t authorize it”, shifts to the issuer. Because there are many parts to any transaction, including acquirer and issuer communications, plus continually changing rules, it’s possible that it will not be invoked.
  • Link to Visa and all card brand Rules.

Call Christine Speedy, PCI Council QIR certified, for global sales. 954-942-0483, 9-5 ET, CenPOS authorized reseller based out of South Florida and NY. CenPOS is an integrated commerce technology platform driving innovative, omnichannel solutions tailored to meet a merchant’s market needs. Providing a single point of integration, the CenPOS platform combines payment, commerce and value-added functionality enabling merchants to transform their commerce experience, eliminate the need to manage complex integrations, reduce the burden of accepting payments and create deeper customer relationships.

3 Things CPA’s Must Advise B2B Clients in 2018

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Accountants offer professional advice regarding cash flow, accounts receivable, tax preparation and all sorts of other consulting. Credit card processing and all the compliance it encompasses introduced immense new compliance challenges in 2017, and it’s fair to say, most businesses have no idea what they are, or what the repercussions are. A big problem is people think it’s someone else’s responsibility to keep their business compliant. Every single merchant must make internal changes to comply.

Three things every B2B company needs to know about credit card processing right now:

  1. If you store credit cards, you must be compliant with Visa Stored Credential Framework. This is arguably as huge as the retail shift to EMV chip card acceptance. There are significant financial and risk consequences for non-compliance. Some solutions companies reduce the compliance burden more than others, while maximizing profits and cash flow.
  2. PCI Compliance mandate for TLS disablement will disrupt business, mostly starting right now, February 2018. Businesses need to ensure they’re servers, software (if applicable) and browsers are compliant, and also have an plan to help internal and external customers overcome issues trying to login to portals, make online payments etc.
  3. It’s a Visa rules violation to request the card security code on a paper credit card authorization form, or any digital form where the business can decrypt and view it. It can’t be stored, period. Not by the merchant nor service provider, including payment gateway.

Why these 3 things? Because 100% of B2B companies I talk to will fail on at least one, and usually two or three. That includes CPA firms also. 86% of all data breaches in 2016 were from level 4 merchants, defined as “Any merchant processing fewer than 20,000 Visa e-commerce transactions per year, and all other merchants — regardless of acceptance channel — processing up to 1M Visa transactions per year.” By complying with the three items on my list, B2B companies will harden their systems and increase profits. The latter occurs because compliance with rules reduces fees. 

Example of solutions to solve these problems:

  1. An intelligent payment gateway can automate compliance with many elements of the Visa Stored Credential Framework. Simply passing data as most payment gateways do is not enough.
  2. Engage internal or external IT team to test all systems for TLS compliance, and verify at SSLlabs.com.
  3. Empower customers to self pay via push (text or email), or pull (online hosted pay page) technology so that employees never have access to cardholder data again. Whatever the old justification for using paper forms with full card data, there is a technology solution that has negated the need.

Christine Speedy, CenPOS authorized reseller, 954-942-0483. CenPOS is a merchant-centric, end-to-end payments engine that drives enterprise-class solutions for businesses, saving them time and money, while improving their customer engagement. CenPOS secure, cloud-based solution optimizes acceptance for all payment types across multiple channels without disrupting the merchant’s banking relationships.

B2B Steps to Visa Stored Credential Mandate Compliance

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How can merchants get compliant with the Visa Stored Credential Transaction framework and mandates effective October 14, 2017?

Step by step getting started guide for B2B merchants:

Plan how you’ll comply with consent record requirements. See Improving Authorization Management for Transactions with Stored Credentials https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/global/support-legal/documents/stored-credential-transaction-framework-vbs-10-may-17.pdf . Are you going to manage documenting everything or are you going to use technology to help you manage it? Ask your gateway if they’re going to provide a checkbox for consent and if you’ll be able to pull the opt-in records on demand. CenPOS, a merchant-centric, end-to-end payments engine that drives enterprise-class solutions for businesses, saving them time and money, while improving their customer engagement will automates multiple elements for clients.

PCI Compliant credit card authorization form

Partial CenPOS PCI Compliant stored credential authorization form.

Update workflow and documents. Ensure your sales order or associated credit documents include sale, refund and cancellation policies. Add a checkbox for customer opt-in to terms, including online payments. CenPOS has an opt-in box and you can customize the text.hosted online pay pageVerify if you have a system to manage authorization validity. What the heck does that mean? Many B2B companies have complex needs including pre-authorizations, incremental authorizations, delayed shipping etc. While you may get issuer approvals, that doesn’t mean the authorization is valid. The two most common rules B2B businesses struggle with are Settlement within timeframe for card not present sales, and Authorization amount and settlement amount must be equal. Per Visa Core Rules October 2017, for typical distributor and manufacturer card not present transactions, the authorization must settle no later than 7 calendar days from the date of the initial Approval Response. CenPOS automates compliance. Other payment gateways are incapable or may leave it up to developers to create a solution. Are you compliant now? Look at your merchant statement ‘pending interchange fees. If you see  EIRF or STD, that’s a red flag there’s a problem.

Replace paper credit card authorization forms, and any digital form that you can decrypt and view sensitive card data. Offer your customers a way to self-manage their own wallet with either a hosted online pay page or Electronic Bill Presentment & Payment. CenPOS offers both options, including a lite ‘request a payment’ option, and lets your customers choose both text and email. For those not ready to give up paper, CenPOS creates a printable PCI Compliant credit card authorization form for every stored card.

New to online payments? See Visa best practices to prevent brute force attacks. https://usa.visa.com/support/merchant/library/visa-merchant-business-news-digest.html. CenPOS includes recaptcha and client managed velocity and other rules as part of a layered security approach.

Verify your gateway is ready or will be ready to send correct transaction data for the initial transaction and subsequent transactions for both customer initiated and merchant initiated use of the stored credential.  You’ll want the payment gateway to perform a zero dollar authorization and authenticate the cardholder with 3-D Secure. Ask your gateway if it will automatically flag a transaction as customer initiated stored credential or merchant initiated stored credential, or if they’ll require you to have multiple gateway accounts, one for each type. CenPOS does all this for you now in a single account.

Get an ecommerce merchant account. This is needed for online payments. Don’t run mail order telephone order (MOTO) transactions on the ecommerce account unless you know your payment gateway can alter the flag sent with transaction to change the transaction type. Many cannot. CenPOS manages all compliance seamlessly in the background; whether you need multiple merchant accounts varies by acquirer/processor.

Register for 3-D Secure, including Verified by Visa, with your acquirer. Don’t do this until you know which payment gateway will be used and get their instructions if applicable.

Communicate with customers. Advise any upcoming changes will increase efficiency and security for everyone.

Why comply? With full compliance, merchants can expect better qualified interchange rates, increased approvals (avoid declines based on issuer risk averse algorithms), reduced PCI Compliance burden, and increased efficiency for both buyer and seller. The cost of non-compliance is hefty, including higher interchange rates, penalty fees, and risk of both issuer and cardholder chargebacks.  

interchange rate qualification

The same transaction can process at different rates as shown above, depending on which rules you follow. CenPOS Smart Rate Selector automates compliance to qualify transactions at the lowest rate possible. Which rates are on your merchant statement now?

Why should developers choose CenPOS for their integrated payment gateway? CenPOS has native modules for ERP, shopping cart, accounting and other software.

  • Increase profits faster
  • More efficient, quicker reconciliation
  • More secure- from Encrypted Virtual Keypad to elimination of credit card auth forms
  • More robust- Wire, ACH, check, Paypal, credit card and more; text and email payments supported. No 3rd party Electronic Invoice solution needed such as BillTrust; CenPOS invoice portal and automated collections included.

Where can I buy CenPOS or learn more? You’ve already found one of the top salespeople, Christine Speedy. All agreements are direct with CenPOS, no middle man.

Resources and documentation https://3dmerchant.com/blog/merchant-bulletins-downloads – bookmark it!.  Join Christine Speedy’s email list.

DISCLAIMER: condensed and incomplete information! Information may be quickly outdated.

With the fast pace of changing rules, companies need a technology partner to automate compliance. Did you know?

  • CenPOS has a suite of solutions for companies just like yours, solving common problems and increasing profits virtually overnight.
  • For those not ready to give up paper, CenPOS creates a printable PCI Compliant credit card authorization form for every stored card.
  • CenPOS has ERP, ecommerce shopping cart, accounting and other plug-in modules available for quick and easy implementation.
  • I’ve been selling for CenPOS since day 1. Though I have other payment gateways available in my arsenal, nothing else compares for meeting business to business needs.

Christine Speedy, CenPOS authorized reseller, 954-942-0483 is based out of South Florida and NY. CenPOS is a merchant-centric, end-to-end payments engine that drives enterprise-class solutions for businesses, saving them time and money, while improving their customer engagement. CenPOS secure, cloud-based solution optimizes acceptance for all payment types across multiple channels without disrupting the merchant’s banking relationships.

Hotel credit card authorization form 2017 change

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Hotel and lodging industry must update best practices due to 2016 and 2017 changes in Visa and MasterCard rules. Cardholder authentication and multiple authorization indicators are two key components of change. Hotels that comply will maximize profits and security. Noncompliance will result in higher credit card acceptance fees due to penalties, increased declines, reduced profits, and new chargeback risk.hotel credit card authorization formFor those still using paper credit card authorization forms, few are in compliance with Visa Core Rules 5.4.2.5 Prohibition against Requiring Cardholder or Account Data – US Region.

“A US Merchant or its agent must not: Request the Card Verification Value 2 data on any paper Order Form.”

Authorization validity is front and center to the 2017 rules changes. Merchants used to get and authorization, and settle it later at checkout. Now merchants must send the correct transaction types and link them all together with a unique identifier:

  1. The ESTIMATE (Visa) or UNDEFINED (MasterCard) indicator is sent when the final settlement amount is unknown. The customer must be informed that it is an estimate as well.
  2. INCREMENTAL authorization is obtained when the original authorization expires or to increase the amount on hold.
  3. Final Authorization says this is the final transaction.

TIP: Merchants need 3-D Secure (Verified by Visa, MasterCard SecureCode), a global cardholder authentication standard for card absent transactions, to maximize profits and compliance for card not present transactions, which is only available with customer initiated transactions: hosted pay page, digital payment request, online booking. Paper forms don’t create a digital record tied to the credit card, and cardholder authentication is not possible, as defined by the card brands. It’s also not possible to comply with the rule by key entering data into any desktop terminal.

The unique transaction transaction identifier can be a point of breakdown in the process. For example, the events manager obtains a paper credit card authorization form. The first charge is a deposit; the second charge is at the end of the event; a third charge occurs after assessing damages to a room. In each case, the amount is key entered into the payment processing terminal. Since there is no transaction identifier tying them all together, the authorizations are invalid and the ISSUER is within their rights to chargeback for invalid authorization, example Visa reason code 72.

There are so many nuances to the rules, and changes needed in the payments ecosystem, hotels should not assume existing partners have completed the required updates to comply. Technology that can automatically manage the authorization and settlement process- not the old way, but with all the new rules changes- requires a sophisticated payment gateway. Like EMV, there will be vendors that struggle to adapt.

For compliant solutions that can be used standalone or integrated, improving your customer experience, contact Christine Speedy, 954-942-0483.

Reference materials:

  • MasterCard® Pre & Final Authorization Mandate by CyberSource, December 2016.
  • Visa Core Rules October 2016.
  • MasterCard Revises Standards for Processing Authorizations and Preauthorizations by Vantiv December 2016.
  • MasterCard Transaction Processing Rules, November 2016.

See merchant bulletins – downloads for links to many resources.