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Question About Foreign Credit Cards

July 26, 2005, 3:58 pm

A woman in Nigeria wants to buy 10 of my wife's handbags.   Right now, we have paypal's foreign credit card option turned off, and of course the Nigeria angle sends off warning bells.  Are there any good ways to accept money from Nigeria with minimal risk of fraud?

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  • http://www.arizonawatch.com Jack Benway

    Coyote, I'm not sure how robust Paypal's anti-fraud scrub lists are. The online processors who deal with a lot of porn companies (Epoch Systems, CCBill, to name a couple prominent ones) tend to have the best anti-fraud databases, but it's hardly worth setting up an account for a single transaction. There's always ACH money transfers, and wire services like Western Union.

    In the case of fraud, you'll have virtually zero chance of recouping, and you'll get hit with chargeback fees as well, so be very certain this transaction is worth the risk.

    You might talk to your bank. They may be able to suggest a better alternative.

    Does this same woman happen to have a large sum of money she needs to launder through a US bank account due to strange political circumstances?

  • http://www.humanadvancement.net/blog Kyle Bennett

    I run a small eBay business, and we will not accept buyers from Nigeria, period. It's not just credit cards and PayPal, there have been cases of forged cashier's checks and the like. Of course, this can happen anywhere, but Nigeria seems to have a particularly active and creative fraud subculture that makes it not worth dealing with them at all.

  • http://www.spectregunner.blogspot.com spectregunner

    I concur with Kyle. There is no fiancial transaction coming out of Nigeria that is worth the risk.

    Additionally, if people completely stop doing financial transaction within Nigeria, there may be enough pressure from within to get the government to clean up its act -- something it has steadfastly refused to do to date.

  • http://www.hoffmang.com/ Gene Hoffman

    What exactly does she need with 10? If she wanted one, I would understand why you might take a Nigerian transaction, but the only reason she wants 10 is to resell them after stiffing you with a stolen card either directly or through Paypal.

    I run the up and coming non porn credit fraud screening company and I can tell you that bulk sales to Nigeria are never any good. If she wants to do business with your wife, set up an empty bank account and let her wire the money to it. Don't let her wire to any account that you have any money in it that she can try to drain.

    Email me if you have any further questions.

    -Gene

  • http://low-apr-credit-card.valueprep.com/business_credit_cards.html B. business credit cards guy Malone

    This is certainly a touchy subject to dissect with any degree of certainty. However, if doing a huge q and a with perspective processors and then having a policy of not taking foreign credit cards and these transactions is good business initially. Although it would be bad business eventually if you did not do your due diligence and get that security in place in order to accept those oversea orders.
    Cheers and I hope everything works out for you.
    Brian

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