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Why do credit card forms ask for Visa, Mastercard, etc.?

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Re: Why do credit card forms ask for Visa, Mastercard, etc.?

#91
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checks are typically very simple, no regex-ing involved. First, names are not really checked. For addresses, usually only the number (and sometimes just first three digits) are checked as well as the zip. Generally the processor tries to decline as few txns as possible and instead deliver the information to the merchant to make a decision. The merchant can usually pre-configure error codes that it would like the proc…

> charge more for missing or incorrect CVVs. Wait, what? Can transactions still go through without the CVV, except the merchant's transaction fee is a bit higher? They're just not declined outright?

[deleted]

Re: Why do credit card forms ask for Visa, Mastercard, etc.?

#92
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story behind the CVV is something like this: CVV is also known as card not present number. Historically it was printed on the back of the card, or on the front using unraised type. This way, if an impression of a credit card was taken (using one of those old fashion swipe back and forth machines), the CVV number would not be included in the impression. This provided some protection for card owners, as it prevente…

I'm confused, how does this work? There is no raised type on any of my cards whatsoever, how do you take an impression of a flat card?

In the old days, before most places had machines to swipe the mag stripe, they used to take card imprints. I'm 38, and have had cards for 20 years, and I've never had anyone imprint my cards.

So these days it's not very necessary to have raised type on the cards for most people.

Re: Why do credit card forms ask for Visa, Mastercard, etc.?

#93
post #39

If you only accept the 4 biggest card issuers, you can get away with some dead-simple code to indicate to the user what card type their number indicates they are. Personally, I bind an onkeyup event handler to fade in the appropriate icon based on the first digit of the number. This is not safe if you accept more than these 4 card types, (we don't). function detect_cc_type(number){ return { '3': 'american_express', '…

If you only accept the 4 biggest card issuers Heads up: If you're in (say) Europe or UK, then American Express and Discover aren't a "big card issuer"

Amex is big enough that it is accepted almost everywhere in Europe. When it isn't, it is usually over cost, not lack of demand.

As for Discover, I don't think I've ever seen a Discover card in Europe...

Re: Why do credit card forms ask for Visa, Mastercard, etc.?

#94
post #53
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only accept the 4 biggest card issuers Heads up: If you're in (say) Europe or UK, then American Express and Discover aren't a "big card issuer"

>Heads up: If you're in (say) Europe or UK, then American Express and Discover aren't a "big card issuer" Do you only have Visa and Mastercard then?

And a boatload of country-specific systems (both credit cards, debit cards and various systems for direct bank transfers)

Re: Why do credit card forms ask for Visa, Mastercard, etc.?

#95
post #94
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Heads up: If you're in (say) Europe or UK, then American Express and Discover aren't a "big card issuer" Do you only have Visa and Mastercard then?

And a boatload of country-specific systems (both credit cards, debit cards and various systems for direct bank transfers)

Yes, there are often country-specific debit cards, but I'm not aware of many country-specific credit cards in Europe? Within the EU (and especially Eurozone), bank transfers are all easy to do and interoperable.

Re: Why do credit card forms ask for Visa, Mastercard, etc.?

#96
post #53
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only accept the 4 biggest card issuers Heads up: If you're in (say) Europe or UK, then American Express and Discover aren't a "big card issuer"

>Heads up: If you're in (say) Europe or UK, then American Express and Discover aren't a "big card issuer" Do you only have Visa and Mastercard then?

I'm in the UK and had an AmEx card for many years. Visa and Mastercard dominate the market, though.

Re: Why do credit card forms ask for Visa, Mastercard, etc.?

#97
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really hard for anyone in 2014 to get the type of a card from the first 2 digits of a card number and add a field to an INSERT query?

It's not difficult, but quite a few developers I've worked with were unaware of that algorithm, which is one reason I think they pushed it into the UI.

All developers I know of, including myself, do have this unawareness of simple things, but I prefer to call it for what it is: simple human laziness.

Re: Why do credit card forms ask for Visa, Mastercard, etc.?

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there are no such provisions. The card companies have their own fraud prevention/detection departments which mine transactions and look for abnormal behavior. If they spot something out of the ordinary (big purchase, foreign purchase, etc) then they will call you to validate.

Anecdote: I used to work with donation processing, and we had a situation where we had transactions that I knew we're identity theft (email addresses were the same, IP the same, but zip, CVV, name correct, and all submitted in a short timeframe). I refunded the transactions and called the banks to report that the cards had been stolen, and the banks basically threw their hands up in the air.

I work with donation processing. We found the same response from the banks, so we've started trying to look up the identify theft victims in the white pages and calling them. Sadly, we only get a 20% hit rate for working phone numbers and typically only get in touch with half of them.

Re: Why do credit card forms ask for Visa, Mastercard, etc.?

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collecting a CVV2 code doesn't increase your chargeback protection (for merchants, there is essentially no chargeback protection. if a customer wants to issue a chargeback, you'll get a chargeback). What it does is reduce your risk profile, which is part of how your processing fees are collected. If you don't collect the CVV2 you're going to have a much higher risk profile, and will either pay a higher processing fee…

How do you mean address verification is fairly expensive? Expensive in terms of lost sales (i.e. users giving up in frustration due to mismatches) or something else? We've had AVS in place for years and get reduced fees as a result. How many people give up on payment due to AVS mismatches, however, is another matter.

our payment gateway would charge us more for address verification than our merchant bank would discount us for using address verification.
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