Website Requirements for Car Rental Companies

The following best practices should be taken into consideration by rental car companies when building their websites and designing their service policies:

• Require website membership to book car reservations. By requiring car renters to become members of the website, merchants can collect additional customer information that can help assess risk. When establishing member profiles, merchants should consider the following best practices:
  
  • Verify the provided customer information before storing it.
    
  • Implement strong security measures to protect sensitive customer information, such as secure data storage and limited employee access.
    
• Capture and store reasons for car rentals. During the reservation booking process on the website, ask customers to provide the reason for renting a car, such as business travel, leisure travel, car repair, or weekend excursion. This information can be stored in the customer history, as well as in the booking record. Rental reasons can help in the risk assessment process. For example, a rental due to car repair is typically lower risk than one due to leisure travel.
  
• Capture, verify and store email addresses. During the reservation booking process, customers should be asked to provide an email address. These email addresses should be verified before being stored because an invalid email address may be a risk indicator.
  
• Issue rental reservation confirmation numbers. This requirement helps assure customers that their rental reservations were successfully processed. Merchants should set up their reservation systems to support customer inquiries to confirm their reservations.
  
• Require a waiting period of at least four hours between rental reservation and car pick up for new customers. This waiting period is needed to provide merchants with sufficient time to verify the validity of the cardholder and the card before the car rental begins. This is especially important for new customers who have not established a track record with the car rental company.
  

Fraud Prevention Best Practices for Airlines

The following best fraud prevention practices should be taken into consideration by merchants selling airline tickets:

• Screen high-risk bookings. Screening high-risk bookings will help merchants detect and prevent fraud before it occurs. Screening should be performed on transactions with characteristics such as:
  
  • Third party purchase.
    
  • First or business class tickets.
    
  • Electronic tickets that are not delivered to the billing address.
    
  • Date of travel that is less than six days after the ticket purchasing.
    
  • Customer who is not involved in a flier program.
    
• Use AVS for paper ticket sales. The Address Verification Service (AVS) can significantly enhance fraud control by enabling merchants to confirm whether billing addresses on file with card issuers match the information provided by ticket purchasers. However, AVS fraud chargeback rights do not apply to electronic ticket sales or to cases where paper tickets are not mailed to the billing address.
  
• Track fraud by ticket source. Implementing this best practice will help identify the areas with greatest risk exposure and develop remedial strategies. When tracking fraud, it should be compared to the volume of tickets sold by source, such as the internet, central reservations, ticket counters, and travel agencies.
  
• Participate in Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode. These services can help prevent fraud and protect against fraudulent "unauthorized use" chargebacks.
  

Best Card Acceptance Practices for Airlines

The following best card acceptance practices should be taken into consideration by merchants selling airline tickets:

• Clearly disclose all terms and conditions of the sale. Customers should know all terms and conditions of the sale before making a decision to buy. The disclosed information should include the following details:
  
  • The amount of an itinerary change fee.
    
  • How the fee will appear on the cardholder's card statement (in total or billed separately).
    
  • When the fee will be billed.
    
  • What name will appear on the cardholder's statement.
    
  A clear disclosure of the above information prior to the sale will ensure quality of service and help avoid unnecessary customer disputes later. Merchants should require that customers accept the disclosure statement by clicking an "Accept" or "Agree" button on the merchant's website prior to completion of the sale.
  
• Clearly disclose all policies for baggage and any other additional fees. Just as with the itinerary change fee procedures described above, merchants should explain how and when baggage and other fees will be collected.