Web Merchant Enlists Power Players to Fight Credit Card Fraud

Web Merchant Enlists Power Players to Fight Credit Card Fraud.

NEW YORK, NY - Adorama, a midsize company and a leading online retailer of photography and video gear, is combating credit card fraud with help from IBM (NYSE: IBM), Curbstone Corporation, an IBM Advanced Business Partner, and CardinalCommerce Corporation.

Online fraud is the fastest growing risk-management problem in the payment card industry and accounts for more than 35% of total fraud losses, according to The Nilson Report.

Curbstone’s secure online payment solution for Adorama runs on IBM i, formerly i5/OS, including the latest IBM Power™ Systems servers running i and older iSeries and AS/400 servers. Web shopping is now more secure, helping Adorama cut fraudulent online purchases. This shrinks costs and allows sales they might otherwise forfeit because of overly strict, but less effective, anti-fraud procedures.

“Hundreds of thousands of merchants around the world, large and small, use these servers as the foundation of their IT infrastructure because they are exceptionally secure and reliable,” said Scott Handy, vice president of Marketing and Strategy for IBM Power Systems.

“We do one thing as well as anyone in the world,” says Ira Chandler, Curbstone’s president. “We seamlessly and securely link merchant credit card purchases to order entry systems. Our clients are brick-and-mortar merchants, mail-order and call-center operations, and online vendors. Adorama, of course, fits each those categories.”

Curbstone Card™ software now offers optional “Verified by Visa®” and “Mastercard® Secure Code®” authentication solutions from CardinalCommerce Corporation. Matt McDowell, vice president of Merchant Services at Cardinal Commerce, explains the goal, “Merchants work hard to make the purchase easy and stress-free so that the customer does not give up before checkout. But it’s just as important to make this experience secure and to protect both parties. These authenticated payment options do just that.”

Adorama’s newly enhanced order management systems have reduced processing fees by 12 basis points. “We couldn’t be happier with the solution. Both Mastercard and Visa have lowered our costs per transaction as an incentive to take part in their authenticated payment programs,” said Harry Drummer, special assistant to the president. “In addition, we estimate these programs have reduced fraudulent online purchases by more than five percent; our overall payback period was under five months.”

“Adorama has benefited from a team of first-rate specialists spanning transaction security services, payment software and computer hardware. The team has delivered an integrated suite of state-of-the-art card processing tools that are practical -- and cost-effective -- for everyone, from small shops and online merchants to huge Web vendors,” Handy added.