Hello Dear SnuffHouse Members, So I ordered some snuff from MrSnuff the other day,and I had preciously used only direct bank transfer, but since it is not efficient I decided to use a debit card to pay for the goods. But the message I recieved from MrSnuff is really confusing. “Thank you for your order, Unfortunately, for clients using Visa and MasterCard with us for the first time, they require us to verify their identity to reduce the amount of fraud. Would it be possible to get a scanned copy of your credit card (front and back) so we can proceed with your order.” Has anyone had this kind of situation when ordering goods? From what I’ve heard from my acquaintance, he didn’t have to do this wierd type of confirmation method. I am confused. What is Your opinion? Regards, doctorr
I would contact Andrea at customer service to verify that this message came from them. Sounds kind of fishy if you ask me.
I suggest you PM @MrSnuff and discuss this one in private. He will be able to verify this for you.
How does a scanned copy of a credit card verify one’s identity All it verifies is that someone has a card and is trying to use it on line…cause no thief ever did that before. I would not do it regardless of who asked me (shop or scam)
Agreed. I used Mr.Snuff for the first time this January and I did not receive that email, nor would I be inclined to use a vendor the required it. This just yells scam to me.
[EDIT- I stand corrected. Apologies for coming off harsh, but I’ve been victim to fraud in the past.]
I can explain and hopefully put your mind at rest. If you are from Russia, Latvia, Lithuania or Nigeria, or if anything else raises the suspicion of the CC processors then they ask us to verify that the person trying to use the card actually has it in their possession. The only way we can do this is to get a scanned copy. We get no more information than you would enter anyway and we ALWAYS safe delete all info/pics or whatever afterwards as part of our pci compliance. Nothing fishy, nor ‘shameless scamming’ on our part, just an effort not to be ripped off by ‘shameless scammers’ ourselves, and comply with processor requests. Over the years we have lost literally thousands of dollars to thoughtless individuals who buy thousands of CC numbers from nefarious dark sites and then use them to scam small businesses such as ours. It may interest you to know that when a CC company is defrauded of money neither the owner of the card actually pays, nor does the CC company. The CC company simply dips right into the merchant’s bank account and takes all the money they feel they need, pays back the card owner and then charges the merchant an additional fee for the privilege. It is sad that the many honest individuals who live in the countries mentioned above are tarred with the same brush as the tiny minority of dishonest scammers. They are treated as if they are criminals, when all they want to do is buy a few tins of snuff. I wish it wasn’t so.
Living in Indonesia, I can confirm that credit card scams are a pain in the arse for everyone. It always used to be that websites would just say "we do not ship to Romania, Nigeria or Indonesia“, because those were the three worst countries for credit card scams. I’m happy to say we seem to have been rehabilitated a bit - leastwise, I haven’t seen that notice for a while.