Using Trusted Email to Prevent Credit Card Frauds in Multimedia Products

This paper focuses on credit card fraud in Multimedia Products, which are soft-products. By soft-products, we mean intangible products that can be used and consumed without having them shipped physically, such as software, music and calling cards (calling time). The demand for soft-products, mainly Multimedia Products, on the Internet has grown in the last few years and is rapidly increasing. Credit card fraudulent transactions on such products are very easy to conduct, while very difficult to recover, compared to the fraud cases in hard-products transactions. This paper classifies the types of products sold on the Internet, and the usual fraud occurred in each type. It summarizes some of the existing best practices to prevent credit card fraud. Finally, it introduces the use of a Trusted Email as a way to authenticate the customer and to simulate his/her physical address (since on these products no actual shipping will happen).