Card not present fraud is unauthorized payment activity in which the physical card is never shown, which is typical of online and telephone purchases.
The merchant cannot compare a card in a hand with a person at the counter, so other signals have to carry more of the trust decision.
How it works
Stolen numbers, altered account takeovers, and friendly disputes can all appear in this channel, and they need different responses.
A criminal purchase and a real customer who later denies a genuine order can look similar in the payment record until shipping, device, and communication evidence are added.
Liability and customer experience pull in opposite directions if every order is refused or every order is accepted.
Calibrate checks to basket risk, use issuer authentication where it fits, and keep a review path that a legitimate traveler or gift buyer can still pass.
Concrete examples
- An online order ships to a new address on a card that the account holder still has in a wallet at home.
- A telephone booking uses a card number read from a stolen photo of the card front, with no chip and no clerk.
- A genuine customer buys a gift to a relative's address and must pass an extra check because the destination is new.
Protective measures
- Match card, account history, and shipping destination, and review orders where all three are new or suddenly changed.
- Offer issuer authentication for online payments and explain the step so honest customers finish it instead of abandoning the cart.
- Keep delivery evidence and customer messages, because disputes later depend on showing where the goods went.
- Separate criminal unauthorized use from a real customer denying a purchase, and investigate those cases with different playbooks.
How CDPCaptcha helps
Browser proof of work increases the cost of automated card not present attempts because each scripted payment session must spend extra computation.
CDPCaptcha is a self-hosted proof of work check in the browser, with no cookies, no tracking, and no picture puzzles.
It is made and hosted in the EU, in Germany, and the service is described at https://cdpcaptcha.com/.
Related articles
The article What is carding in payment fraud? describes spending stolen card data, much of which happens in this no card channel.
The article What is credit card fraud? covers unauthorized card use in every channel, including ones where the card is present.
The article What is chargeback fraud? explains dispute abuse that can follow a genuine card not present purchase.