Wolverines

Just wondering if anyone can provide an answer to this for me.


Our website uses Cybersource for our credit card verification process. What we constantly run into with this is customers will place an order on our site the site will capture the funds and then will proceed to verify the address information.

When this information comes back incorrect the customer is told something is wrong. The customer tries to fix the information and places the order again, once again our site will go out and capture the funds and then verify the shipping information. What this typically leads to is the customer assuming that we have gone and billed his credit card 2 or 3 or 4 times depending on how stubborn they are. We obviously aren't charging their cards this many times the funds are just put into a credit hold but it still looks like we did until the funds fall off 24-48 hours later.

In talking to my IT guy he says this is Cybersources' method and the banks our customers choose to use method of verifying. He has said that there is no way for us to change the process so that we verify the address information first and then attempt to capture the funds. He also is saying that because many of our customers are using their debit cards this issue is happening.

So I guess what I'm wondering is my IT guy correct? Is there no way to adjust the way cybersource checks for information and captures funds. I can't understand how it is not possible to flip the process and go out to verify the address information first, if this is correct capture the funds. If this is incorrect notify the customer and do not capture the funds.

I'm not looking for anything to do it myself as I have no idea about programming. I would just like a statement about if it is possible then in basic terms how it can be done. I'm trying to prove to the owner of our company and website that our IT guy is just blowing smoke and either doesn't know how or doesn't want to fix the site.


I'm trying to get as many people to provide answers to me about this because my IT guy swears up and down that no site can do this.

Yo G,

It's funny you should bring up Cybersource as we are currently working to implement forms on our school site that will use them to process credit card payment.  In preparation for this project, I met with the guys that run the websites for several major OSU services.  One of the questions I asked was about problems they have had with processing.  The first thing out of their mouths was this exact same problem.  For instance, if a student tries to put money on their BuckID (university debit card) but their credit card is in their parent's name or their address on their account isn't the same as their campus address, it hangs up the transaction and puts the charge on hold.  Then they try again, same thing.  And again, same thing.  Next thing you know the bank is freezing their account and they have thousands of dollars hung up in incomplete transactions.

In short, your IT guy is either wrong or lazy or both.  There is a way around this problem.  The solution is to include a flag in the forward to Cybersource that tells their system to bypass address verification entirely.  This might not be an ideal fix as it removes a layer of fraud prevention, but it is definitely possible.  I can get more technical details (code) on this if you'd like, but you should probably tackle any business concerns related to skipping address verification first.

So with out taking out taking out address verification there is no other way to force Cybersource to not double or triple bill?  Troyer was kind enough to get me in contact with another of his buddies who said that there is a way to check for verification after the fact if the verification is not there then it cancels the transaction.  Is this possible in cybersource?  It just astounds me that a system is set up to always hold peoples money like this.

From what the guys told me, no, there's not a way to have them cancel the original transaction.  That was coming from one source though and it may not be true.  I would contact Cybersource's IT guys personally and get the low-down from them.  Your IT guy won't do it and even if he does he'd lie about the answer if it contradicted what he's already told you.  IT people are stubborn folk don't like being proven wrong.

QFT

OK... it's possible, but not for every processor.  Let me say that if you are looking to stay "buddies" with this IT mgr, you are committing career suicide by trying to make him look like an ass to the big bosses.  Regardless of how you do it, if you go over his head, you are making him look like an ass.  Now, that being said...

Cybersource can do what is called a full authorization reversal.  This is a process that releases held funds, but it will only work for certain processors so you would have to know who that is.  Now I don't know what kind of business it is, but I would hope that if you are shipping products that you are only doing an authorization on the card and not a full charge.  You cannot charge a card where tangible goods are being shipped until the goods are shipped.  In case that confuses you, when someone would buy something from my website, I did authorization only until either I shipped it later in the day or my distributor shipped it.  Anyway, all your questions can be answered in this document which I believe would be applicable to your company unless they have a custom contract with Cybersource...

http://apps.cybersource.com/library/documentation/dev_guides/CC_Svcs_IG/html/


See chapter 4, Reversing an Authorization

Thanks Hawkes!!

Honestly I could care less about hurting this guys feelings or him not liking me.  Won't lose a single wink of sleep over this putz.  I took JT's advice and called Cybersource directly and it appears the moron has us set up using a smart authorization set up that automatically puts a bunch of the customers orders in to a review batch for us to review.  Well we've been using cybersource for about 5 years now I think, old website and on our new website and I've yet to hear anything about a review batch and going into look at these things.  The lady at Cybersource said the transactions were approving through the bank but then going into review because of the way we have our smart authorization set up it was not clearing cybersources checks so it was going into the review process.  So obviously the funds sat in review for 24-48 hours and eventually fall off the same issues we've been having for 5 years and this guy has said there is nothing that can be done about it.

Another question or two for ya then if you don't mind Hawkes.

My IT guy has said that us turning off address verification on cybersource and allowing a fraudulent card to go through is a big no no and we can get fined if we don't prove that we have done everything we can to prevent this from happening. If the credit cards are clearing the banks authorization process and we have the security code check turned on, how big a deal is it to not have the address verification turned on so we don't have all of these orders hanging up?

I'm glad you brought up about the shipping stuff, I just read about that on cybersources help files and have never heard word one from our IT guy about this.  The way we are set up now is that our website authorizes and captures the funds, we receive an email stating the funds have been received along with a copy of the order that we then process and ship.  Now we always ship same day if the orders are in before 4:00pm eastern but when they come in after 4:00 or over the weekend we ship the next business day. So obviously we are not doing this correctly, I guess the question I have is a major no no, or is it sorta like its not supposed to happen but everyone does it?

From what I've read it looks like all of our orders should go into a review batch, so we would only be billing them once and the only reason they would have issues with our credit card processing on our website is if their card was an actual decline.  Then once we ship the orders we would go in either with every order or at the end of the business day and process all of the orders we shipped that day capturing the funds at that time. Like I said nothing is set up like this now, and with this putz who knows how long this will take.  Hell it's taken him over 4 months to get google analytics on our website.

One more question to any of the IT guys out there. I've talked to Troyer who has added google analytics to his website but he said thats just basic html and he isn't sure about any of the other programming languages out there.

Can anyone fill me in on how difficult it is to put analytics on a website using other languages?  Our IT guy was asked 4 months ago to add this in and claims to have a guy that all he does is google analytics.  Troyer said it was as easy as cutting and pasting the information from Google into the bottom of every page.  Is this the case in other formats or is it a lot more involved to add this in?

Oh and Hawkes if you want to take a look at our site its supposed to be new and updated as of today.  Though I can see changes that our IT guy is making throughout the day today. Any comments you might want to toss out would also be appreciated. We're trying to prove to the owner that this guy doesn't know his ass from a website.

our website is www.44tools.com

We compete against 3 other major window film tool distributors and yet if you do a google search for any of our items we won't appear in the top 10 pages.  We have customers who buy from us that appear higher than us because of our putz of an IT guy.

When my site was up and running here is the process I went by:

1) Order came in and was ran as an authorization only.
2) I personally verified each order to be sure I wasn't getting screwed and I still had the top level of security check running.  As an internet business I would never turn off address verification for a couple reasons.  One, too many fraudulent transactions this way.  Two, you WILL be liable for eating the order since you opted to turn off what they provide as a means to prevent fraud.
3) After the order was verified, I either shipped it or had my disti ship it.
4) End of the day, I would run a batch with CSI.  This would take all my authorization transactions that I flagged and turn them into sale transactions thereby completing the transaction and billing the customers card.  If an item didn't ship that day because the order came in too late or was outof stock, it would sit as an authorization.

You can read it in the help files for any credit card processor.  You may not charge the customer until the item has shipped, plain and simple.  Now in my book, this was a major no no.  It's not managed by the processors because it isn't their rule, it's visa, mastercard, etc.  Every processor has a site that you log in to to see all the transactions, refund them, edit them, etc.  This is where the transactions sit until the batch is run.  The batch is either run manually or automatically depending on your processors settings.


Now in respect to showing up in Google, your IT guy is severely hurting your businesses potential by not optimizing your site for search engines.  It's SEO optimization and it is an art.  I can assure you that if he's a moron by normal standards he will fail miserably at attempting this.  There are some very simple things you can do (basic html as Troyer has mentioned) that will do some good things, let alone if you really work at it, you will see amazing results.  Here is a site that breaks it down pretty good.  You can get a real good understanding of how to optimize the site by following this guys process.

http://www.stompernet.net/goingnatural2/video1.asp?vid=1

Good luck.

Thanks for the info Hawkes.

I guess I wasn't quite clear on the google analytics part.  I was wondering how hard it is to set up on a site other than an html site.  Troyer has done it on an html site and said it was nothing more than cut and paste.  What I was wondering is it this simple with other languages?  My IT guy was asked over 4 months ago to put analytics on our website but it wasn't done until this past weekend.  Is there any reason in the world that it should have taken this long to do?

I implemented it on a site that's HTML + CSS.  I don't know if it's just pasting 6 lines into a site built with ColdFusion or PHP...

heh... every site starts with html.  Correct me if I am wrong Troyer, but the cut and paste is in the very first few lines of the site index page correct?  I've already gone to your company site and analytics should/would be a piece of cake to add.  Also, Googel Analytics is an analysis tool.  It is not going to get you higher in the search listings unless you use the reports from it and put that information to good use, meaning SEO optimization.  It will help you understand how people got there, what they were looking for, place Google Ads more appropriately without wasting ad money, etc.  This should be one of the tools you use to learn what needs to be changed in the site code in order to bring your listings to the first and top page.  I guarantee if you add GA to your site for a month and then implement what the video talks about, you will see drastic results in a positive way on your site.

I know analytics is only about site analysis but we want to know where people are coming and going from.  The other site is great and hopefully we can implement a lot if not all of what they are talking about. The big thing now is getting our IT guy to build a site that we will feel comfortable sending people to. As it stands I'm not really comfortable wanting to send people to the site because I think they are going to be turned off because of how bad it is and how many issues we have had.

Hawkes as a former e-commerce person you'll love this information right now our site manages a whopping 103 people to the site a month. Now luckily most of the people heading to the site are looking to buy and we average over 75% of the people hitting our site buy something, but still 75 people a month is pretty pathetic.  Of course the people that are finding our site are doing so from catalogs we send out or print advertisements they aren't finding us through internet searches.

I understand what you are saying and analytics will tell you where they are coming form, but it will not help get you into the top 10 pages unless you USE the information.  In e-commerce you can't just "build it and they will come".  You've already found that out, but will building a "nicer" site change that?  No.. not unless you get yourself into the top searches.  Trust me... if you don't implement something to get you higher in the listings you are wasting your time.

GA goes in right at the end before the </body> tag.

I think you guys are arguing two different topics. Garenth's looking for information to diagnose how people are visiting and using his site as well as how it's hindering them. I don't think he's confusing what GA provides with getting them better or more traffic.

I should have been more clear, but I was referring to the end of G's post...


I just wanted to emphasize that GA will not get their site to appear any higher in a google search, but it will help them determine what they need to change or focus on to get higher.