For Immediate Release
Highlights of Presentation, “Knowing the Rules that Regulate Online Payments” and Directions for Getting Your Free Copy
New Castle, Del (June 4, 2001) – “The Rules” of accepting online payments range from protecting customer data to making product information details clear and accurate, according to a presentation given by Electronic Payment Exchange (EPX) COO Scott Martin last Friday at the Electronic Commerce World Spring Convention in Santa Clara, California.
At the show, Martin discussed issues every e-tailer should be aware of, in order to comply with both Government and Bankcard rules designed to protect the consumer. For example:
· A high number of complaints about a company at consumer protection agencies, and/or a high ratio of consumer-reversed transactions, known as chargebacks, is often a sign that the company either gives misleading information about their product or service - including product, shipping, pricing and return information - or has poor customer service.
· Visa has recently implemented 10 “best practices” for security that all Internet merchants that accept Visa cards must follow. These range from requiring merchants to use a firewall and encrypt stored data to avoiding use of vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords.
· Visa and MasterCard have specific guidelines for website layout. For example, websites should clearly and prominently display: the corporate office address and phone number; customer support contact information with a customer service telephone number and email address; order processing and delivery information; all pricing fees and charges; the cancellation, refund and return policies; as well as security and privacy statements.
· Merchants with more than one website should establish a separate company number for each site at their merchant account bank, and each company number should use a descriptor that matches the respective web site. This way, the descriptor that appears on the consumer’s billing statement will match the website name - rather than the main corporate name - resulting in less confusion when he/she receives his/her billing statement.
· The Federal Trade Commission Mail Order/ Telephone Order Rule also applies to Internet merchants. Last July, seven major e-tailers were charged with violating the rule and paid fines that totaled $1.5 million for alleged failure to ship merchandise in the time-frame promised, and failure to provide proper notification to customers. A copy of the Mail/ Order Telephone Order rule may be found online at the Federal Trade Commission’s website, www.ftc.gov
· If a company outsources customer service, fulfillment or any other part of their operations, they should be sure to select a reliable vendor and track performance. To illustrate this point, if a company promises their customer a product in 7 days and their fulfillment service doesn’t deliver, that company has still broken the FTC’s Mail Order/ Telephone order rule, and has created a dissatisfied customer.
For more information, or to request a free copy of Martin’s presentation, please send an email to jwarren@epx.com, and write “the rules” in the email subject line. Include your name, title and company name in the body of the email.
About EPX
Founded in 1979, EPX is a full-service payment processing company, which specializes in enabling businesses to accept credit card, debit card and electronic check transactions. Notable EPX milestones have included: processing the first Internet credit card and electronic check transactions, developing the first real-time transaction reporting website and creating the first merchant financial risk transfer processing guarantee for banks. EPX has a vast array of clients, from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies, and currently processes over $5 billion in Internet transactions a year. For more information visit www.epx.com.
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Contact:
Jennifer Warren
Electronic Payment Exchange
(302) 326-0700 extension 2131
jwarren@epx.com
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