Blog Articles

In February 2023, both Turkey and Syria were hit with a massive earthquake — and bad actors capitalized on the flood of donations pouring into the countries. Read further for more details about how charity scams work, and how LegitScript’s monitoring solutions protect companies like yours.

The payments space is competitive, with new payment facilitators and ISOs entering the fray every year. Rather than merely capturing new merchants or peeling ones away from competitors, many payments companies are looking at new markets to help build revenue in ways that are conscientious and compliant. Keep reading to learn about rapidly growing industries to consider.

Know Your Customer (KYC) checks are a crucial part of the underwriting process and help weed out problematic applicants before they’re approved for a merchant account. These required checks involve the verification of information such as an applicant’s identity, financial activities, and the risk they pose. Keep reading to understand the three common elements involved in a KYC check.

Merchant underwriting and merchant monitoring are important solutions for addressing and mitigating risk throughout the lifecycle of a merchant account, but they are not the same. Read more to learn the difference between merchant underwriting vs. merchant monitoring, understand the benefits and drawbacks of both, and see how they complement each other.

Let’s explore how reputational risk impacts the relationships payment facilitators, ISOs, and acquiring banks have in the payments industry.

There are many elements to compliance for a payments company, one of which is Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). Read more to understand why PCI DSS is an important card brand requirement for reducing fraud, and what PCI DSS compliance requirements are.

Payment service providers looking to grow their business may explore a variety of industries, but some pose more challenges than others. Read more to understand what a high-risk industry is, what is required to obtain a merchant account in a high-risk industry, and how to help keep your ecosystems safe.

Among fraudulent practices in payment processing, one of the most challenging is a deceptive tactic called transaction laundering, which is different from traditional money laundering. Keep reading to learn about money laundering vs. transaction laundering.

A recent Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report states the amount of money US consumers lost in 2022 to scams — and it’s in the billions of dollars.

Hosted by LegitScript, Marketplace Risk, and Merchant Risk Council, Online Risk & Compliance Day is an industry-wide day of education and networking for professionals working in merchant risk & compliance and in trust & safety. What should you know about this one-of-a-kind event? #1. It’s free. The day will feature more than four hours worth…

LegitScript increasingly encounters groups of related merchants whose websites are nearly exact duplicates of each other. We refer to these merchant groups as clusters, and they pose a variety of threats to merchant portfolios. Keep reading to understand what they are, why they appear, and how you can spot them. What are merchant clusters? Cluster…

According to the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), payday loans increase around the holidays, likely because many consumers need extra cash for holiday shopping or travel. It’s for this reason many online payday lenders make an aggressive marketing push during this season, and why payment service providers should be on the lookout for predatory lenders…

Veterans Day is a popular time for businesses to advertise to the military, including merchants offering predatory services. For this reason, it’s important for payment service providers to scrutinize merchants offering help with official services to ensure they aren’t taking advantage of customers. For example, some merchants offer to help retired military members process form…

Labor Day weekend is one of the biggest for sales in the United States. These bargains traditionally include big-ticket items such as appliances and mattresses, but now also include smaller items such as backpacks, clothes, and school supplies as kids get ready to return to the classroom. These smaller, mass-produced items are perfect for online…

Summer is peak travel season and typically one of the busiest times of year for airlines, resorts, and other travel and entertainment businesses with many moving parts. That’s especially true this year, as generally lower levels of COVID-19 cases paired with pent-up demand are yielding travel volume equal to and in some cases greater than…