If your company conducts charge card business over the phone, you will never personally meet many of your customers. You need to be aware of the fact that many customers choose to take advantage of this.

Mail and telephone credit card losses amount to millions of dollars each year. Fortunately, the people who engage in this type of fraud are usually unsophisticated and detected easily. Litle & Co. offers these suggestions for screening credit card orders.

* Train operators to listen to tone of voice. Note anything
suspicious.

* Keep a file of bad debtors, phony names and addresses, bogus
companies, and bad credit card account numbers.

* If the address given is a P.O. Box in a large city, check into
the order more carefully--especially it it's from a new customer.

* Carefully check any orders with unusually high dollar amounts
or involving out-of-the-ordinary situations, including rush orders.

* Both American Express and Optima cards have a four-digit,
nonembossed CID number printed on the front end of the card.
It appears on the right border of American Express, and
the left border of Optima. Ask customers who place orders with
these cards for the CID number.

* Visa card customers will have a nonembossed number appearing
above the first four digits on their card. Ask them for that
number, and verify that it matches the first four digits of
the card's account number.

If your company conducts charge card business over the phone, you will never personally meet many of your customers. You need to be aware of the fact that many customers choose to take
advantage of this.

Mail and telephone credit card losses amount to millions of dollars each year. Fortunately, the people who engage in this type of fraud are usually unsophisticated and detected easily. Litle & Co. offers these suggestions for screening credit card orders.

* Train operators to listen to tone of voice. Note anything
suspicious.

* Keep a file of bad debtors, phony names and addresses, bogus
companies, and bad credit card account numbers.

* If the address given is a P.O. Box in a large city, check into
the order more carefully--especially it it's from a new customer.

* Carefully check any orders with unusually high dollar amounts
or involving out-of-the-ordinary situations, including rush orders.

* Both American Express and Optima cards have a four-digit,
nonembossed CID number printed on the front end of the card.
It appears on the right border of American Express, and
the left border of Optima. Ask customers who place orders with
these cards for the CID number.

* Visa card customers will have a nonembossed number appearing
above the first four digits on their card. Ask them for that
number, and verify that it matches the first four digits of
the card's account number.