In most cases the responsibility rests with you, the merchant. This is not a legal opinion about for your own business’ sake you should make sure you are clear on this.
If a customer thinks they are paying for a booking online but rather the card is passed on to you to process manually, and their card number is stolen or compromised and used to make purchases by someone else, the following could happen;
The customer will likely contact their bank to notify them that they didn’t make the purchases.
- The bank will ask the customer for a statutory declaration confirming they didn’t use the credit card for the illegal purchases.
- The bank will then find out where the fraud occurred. In most cases they then pursue the merchant (you) first. It’s the operator’s responsibility to prove that they handled the card-transaction properly and that they weren’t responsible for the theft of the card.
- If an operator can’t prove that they used proper precautions then they face legal action from the bank for recovery of the total fraudulent purchases.
When you decide to accept credit cards online you must ensure your online payments are secure. If you use unsecure methods, banks can take away your facility to process any credit cards, offline and online.
Rezobx offers PCI secure online payment through an approved payment gateway.
