I am the cofounder and CEO of Voices.com, an online marketplace where business people can search for, audition and hire professional voiceover talent. In 2008, we lost $50,000 in one month to credit card fraud.
This was a common scam that involved someone getting hired to do work -- performing a voiceover, in our case. The work was delivered and the "client" paid by sending double than was previously agreed upon with a stolen credit card. The scammer apologized and then asked for a check for the difference, minus $100 for the inconvenience.
We saw this pattern occur under different accounts, but it is our belief that it was the same person perpetrating the crime. And while we attempted to dispute each claim, we didn't have either of the two things required to recoup our money -- an original signature authorizing the transaction or proof of delivery to a physical mailing address.
Now, we have far more sophisticated financial systems to detect a potential fraudulent transaction. Our fraud rate has been zero percent in 2009, 2010 and 2011. If you process credit cards online, require address verification and a real e-mail address and phone number for your customers. Know your customers and call them to verify transactions above a certain threshold.
Diann Cattani's embezzlement of a small business started off as an innocent mistake and then quickly got out of control.
