Appendix A:Authorizing Transactions
Obtaining the proper authorization for the transactions you process, in conjunction with implementing strong fraud prevention policies, are the most important steps you can take to protect yourself against disputes, return fees, and chargebacks.
Authorizations protect both you and your customers. They provide a record of your customer's approval of a transaction, and they enable you to provide proof that you had permission to process a transaction in the event that your customer later claims the transaction was not authorized.
Implementing security policies and card authorization procedures designed to detect fraudulent transactions before they are processed prevents the significant time involved in defending a disputed charge, and saves you the substantial fees assessed for chargebacks (not to mention the money you lose on the original transaction itself).
The following sections provide guidance on how to obtain the proper authorization for one-time and recurring Echeck (ACH) and credit card transactions, help for understanding and preventing chargebacks, and tips on using the fraud prevention tools available to you as part of ReceivablesPro.
Also provided are authorization form templates that can be customized for your business when it needs to obtain written authorizations. When using the templates, enter your business information in all the red entry fields—for example where you see <Insert Business Name>, you would remove that text, type your business name, and change the font color to black.
The following sections provide details on how to authorize credit card and Echeck (ACH) transactions, in addition to sample language and templates you can use for authorization forms, receipts, and terms and conditions. You can click on the Next links, located at the bottom of each screen, to read through the entire section. Or click one of the links below to jump to a particular area of interest.
Next Sections