| FEATURED ARTICLE |
| Are You a Victim of Fraud? |
 Many types of fraud are on the rise especially in today’s economy. "Identity Theft, counterfeit cards and employee embezzlement are frequent," says Deborah Brazie, Special Investigator, with Elavon’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU), "Today the most typical type of merchant fraud is Identity Theft." |
| Elavon is not taking this fraud lightly. Elavon’s Special Investigation Unit (SIU) has teamed up with numerous organizations such as Merchant Acquirers Committee, International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators and Canada Payment System Risk Council whose purpose is to collaborate and share information on risk and fraud trends. |
| Brazie describes the SIU unit as being "dedicated to working with our competitors, card issuing banks, card networks and law enforcement at the federal, state and local level for the benefit of eliminating fraud and risk in the payments space. The goal of this group is to bring about prosecution, conviction and restitution from fraudsters involving losses incurred at Elavon and our valued merchant customers." |
| In order to detect and prevent fraud, Brazie states, "Elavon uses a proprietary risk management system called ARMS which is an empirically-driven scorecard customized to fit both the broad and unique characteristics of our merchant base." |
| The best thing a merchant can do to protect their business and their customers is to check the card security features, make sure the name and last four digits on the card match the name and number on the authorization response. For mailed in payments, telephone payments and internet transactions Brazie suggests, "utilizing AVS, CVV2/CVC2 as well as Verified by Visa and MasterCard Secure Code." |
| Visa and MasterCard provide excellent merchant facing websites with up-to-date information regarding fraud prevention. Visit Visa risk management and MasterCard web pages for more information. |
| Brazie advises, "Don’t be dazzled by dollar signs. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Verify your transactions. If you are not comfortable, use all the resources available to you." |
| PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT |
| ACH Processing – Check Gateway |
 Gone are the days of hearing the check is in the mail. With CheckGateway® you have the ability to set up convenient recurring payments. Easily avoid the risk of accepting checks without purchasing a terminal with CheckGateway®. Check transactions can be submitted in real time over the internet through our secure gateway, debiting the customer's account and depositing payment directly into your checking account. You can avoid bad checks before accepting them with our FraudChek suite. |
| Call 877-877-6511 or contact us NTC Texas for a no obligation demonstration of our check accepting Virtual Terminal. You will be amazed at how easy and safe we have made check acceptance. |
| TECH TIP |
| Weak Online Credentials Can Bring You Down |
 The criminals are at it again. Fraudsters are taking advantage of merchant’s weak online log-in credentials to gain access to the merchant accounts and conduct fraudulent transactions. Once the crooks obtain the merchants credentials and/or passwords to their merchant accounts they send fraudulent credit transactions to debit cards set up by themselves or their associates. Credits are often for thousands of dollars. These transactions are made to look like a credit for returned merchandise applied to a customer's debit card. In reality, no merchandise was ever sold and the funds go to the criminals' own debit cards. |
| Recommendations for Reducing Fraud |
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Protect online credentials and use strong authentication to access online accounts. |
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Match return and credit transactions to corresponding sales. |
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Report lost or stolen point-of-sale (POS) terminals. |
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Allow only trusted IP filtering connections to access online web portals. |
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Immediately report suspected fraudulent credit schemes to the issuing bank that is receiving the credit; the issuing bank may agree to hold funds to prevent fraud loss and/or conduct velocity monitoring of return transactions by merchant location in real time. |
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Report suspected fraudulent credit schemes to the appropriate law enforcement or regulatory agency and to Visa Fraud Control. |
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| DID YOU KNOW? |
| PCI Compliance is required in order to accept credit cards and must be recertified every year. |
| There is a difference between Red Flag Rules and PCI Compliance. Red Flag Rules are set by the Federal Trade Commission where as PCI Compliance is set by the PCI Security Standards Council. |
| Not all terminals and software are PCI Compliant. If your terminal or software is more than 5 years old contact NTC Texas at 877-877-6511 and we will evaluate it for you. In some cases upgrading is as easy as downloading the latest version of the software. |
| It takes 3-5 business days to make changes to your account. If you are changing banks or addresses please notify our office as soon as possible. |
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| Important Updates |
| Avoid Phishing Scams! |
 Please be aware we are currently investigating potential phishing email scams. Phishing emails are sent from fraudsters who are trying to access confidential information about you or your business. NTC Texas would never request you provide your Social Security Number, Tax ID Number or other sensitive information in response to an email. |
| If you receive a suspicious email, don’t click on any links in the email or provide any information. Instead, type the product URL into your browser’s address bar to securely access the site. If you receive suspicious email that uses Elavon’s name or NTC Texas’ name please notify us immediately by email or call 877-877-6511. |
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| ABOUT NTC TEXAS |
| An Elavon Payment Partner, NTC Texas enables your business with all the transactional capabilities of the processing network rated #1 by MasterCard for reliability and availability. Whatever size your business is now, together, we can make it grow. |
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Healthcare Providers |
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Retailers |
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Veterinarians |
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Web Developers |
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eCommerce/eBusiness |
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Legal |
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Assisted Living & Nursing Homes |
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Day Care Centers |
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Salons/Spas |
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Restaurants |
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Entertainment |
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Travel & Lodging |
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Not -for-profit |
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Business-to-Business |
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Government & Utility |
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| Contact a Solution Specialist |
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| CONTACT US |
| NTC Texas |
| 106 Decker Court Suite 260 |
| Las Colinas, Texas 75062 |
| Email: Info@NTC Texas.com |
| Web: www.ntctexas.com |
| Tel: 972.406.8111 |
| Toll Free: 877.877.6511 |
| Fax: 972.406.8611 |
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