What Are the Disadvantages of Taking Credit Card Information on the Telephone?

• Credit cards make purchasing products from an out of town vendor convenient. Vendors that take credit card information over the telephone have an added layer of challenges that do not exist when the information is given in person or online. In order to protect your business from lost revenue due to bad credit card transactions, you should learn the disadvantages of taking credit card information over the phone.

Bad Connection

• Taking a credit card number over the telephone requires a good connection so that you can hear your customer. With many people using cellular phones to place telephone orders, the ability to get a good connection is sometimes compromised. You may be in the middle of taking a customer's order and lose the connection causing the order to be lost, or the bad connection may make it difficult to hear the customer properly and cause you to take down the wrong credit card number.

Stolen Credit Cards

• One of the advantages of taking a credit card sale in person is that you have the ability to check the customer's picture identification to confirm that the credit card is his. When you are taking credit card information over the phone, you do not have the chance to confirm your customer's identification. This can result in you taking stolen credit cards.

Signature

• When a consumer makes a transaction online with a credit card, you have the ability to make the customer check a box that says they authorize the transaction. A credit card transaction done face-to-face can be sealed with a hard copy signature from the client. When you take credit cards by phone, you lack that ability to get hard copy customer confirmation. The customer could refuse the charge and point to the lack of a signature as proof that the transaction was not valid. If you have already shipped the product, then you could be out the cost of the item and shipping charges.

Visual Confirmation

• Taking credit cards over the phone, or over the Internet, eliminates the ability for you to have visual confirmation of the transaction. When you take a credit card from someone in person, you can confirm the number on the card, confirm the expiration date and talk to the customer to see if the card may be stolen. When you take credit cards online or over the phone, you lose that visual confirmation that could be important in spotting someone trying to commit fraud.