11 Tips for protecting confidential business information

11 Tips for Protecting confidential Business Information:

1. Empty the mailbox: Never leave outgoing or incoming mail in pick-up boxes overnight. This is your best defense against possible off-hour mail snoops.

2. Watch the fax: A document sitting on the fax waiting for pick-up is an open invitation for prying eyes. Try to stand by the fax machine to receive sensitive information as soon as it comes in.

3. Make copies carefully: Private matters can go public fast when juicy stuff gets left behind. When making copies of sensitive documents, remember to grab your originals off the copy machine.

4. Use the shredder: Always shred sensitive information before dumping it in the trash bin. If you can’t shred, use receptacles designed for sensitive paper disposal.

5. Leave discreet voice mail messages: You never know who’s standing within earshot of someone’s work area, so avoid leaving a detailed voice mail message if it involves sensitive information.

6. Protect your on site ID: Play it safe with your ID badges, office keys, and building-entry codes. Protect them as you would your own credit cards or cash.

7. Keep things private in public: When you’re in a public place, think twice before discussing proprietary information or any details about sensitive projects. You never know who’s listening.

8. Don’t make it easy for an outsider to pull an inside job: If you see an unfamiliar face roaming around your office, step up and ask if you can assist. Make your presence known.

9. Be careful with your documents: Remove all sensitive materials from your work area when you’re not using them or at the end of the day. Be sure to lock them in the appropriate file cabinets, desk drawers, etc.

10. Note what’s on your screen: Those account numbers and financial details on your computer screen are intended for your eyes only! To keep it that way, use a glare screen to minimize easy information access.

11. Limit cell phone conversations: Anyone can listen in on your cellular conversations. All it takes is a good ear and a decent scanner. Avoid sharing any sensitive information over a cell phone.

Data Security

Data Security- Merchant Responsibilities

As a merchant that accepts Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express, you must take extra care to protect cardholder data from internal or external compromises. Data security should be a key component of all merchant policies and practices related to payment acceptance and transaction processing. Customers seek out merchants that are reputable and reliable, they expect assurance that their account information is being guarded and their personal data is safe.

• Secure Storage: Merchants are responsible for insuring that account information is stored in secure, limited access areas. In addition merchants are prohibited from storing magnetic stripe information following a transaction and disclosing cardholder data to anyone—except if it is needed by a merchant bank, card issuer, or third-party processor to complete a sale.

• Prevent employee fraud scams: A merchant’s data security policies should also be designed to prevent fraud scams involving collusive employees. Whenever possible, account numbers should be encrypted or scrambled during transaction processing. Unauthorized electronic equipment—such as laptop computers—that can be used to steal or replicate account information should not be allowed in the workplace.
  

• Encryption Software: Data security should be of special concern to e-commerce merchants. Encryption software is required to protect account information during online transactions, and merchants must also ensure that account data cannot be accessed online. To make cardholder data “hacker-proof”, merchants can either use firewalls—which may include encryption, passwords, or other protections—or store the account data on a computer with no internet access.

ABC Website!

ABC Website!
We’re finally able to announce that our new web-site is live! Click on or go to www.abcprocessing.com and check it out. It will be improving as we go, so you can expect some exciting and very useful features that will be providing a host of benefits.

Security Practices

"Don't leave your life up to chance, grab the reigns of your life and charge gallantly in the direction of your grandest vision" --- Darren Hardy

Security Practices; a Hard Lesson Learned Firsthand

We are excited to bring you another issue of our monthly newsletter. To begin, I would like to share this story with you. The following should magnify the importance of having payment processing security practices in place at your business.

Sometime last year we received a panicked call from our friend and merchant-partner, Ben Amouna, of American Gas here in Newhall, Ca.

Ben’s bank account had suddenly been debited for over $20,000.00. Well as it turns out we hadn’t touched the account, the debit was initiated by the payment processor that they had been with before settling on ABC Processing for good.

Ben had been with us for a year or so when another processor came along and promised him better prices. Being in the midst of a recession Ben certainly could benefit if this were the case, so he signed with them.

After discovering that we have an ironclad 3 year rate guarantee policy, which enables us to match or beat any contracted offer, he immediately came back with us due to our superior level of customer service.

Apparently during the time Ben processed with the other folks there were several transactions that ended up being compromised, meaning the cardholder’s information was accessed and fraudulent transactions were generated as a result.

Although the fraudulent transactions occurred elsewhere, the compromise was traced back to the P.O.S. at Ben’s business.

What happened is that a criminal captured the cardholder’s data at Ben’s place of business, unbeknownst to anyone, and used the information to fraudulently execute a couple of purchases at several other businesses totaling over $20,000.00.

Almost a year later and without notice Ben’s account was debited overnight. This understandably left Ben angry and confused, as to his knowledge he hadn’t done anything that could result in a potentially catastrophic loss such as this.

The fact of the matter is that if a cardholder’s information is compromised and fraud is perpetrated, ultimately the merchant is financially responsible if the cardholder information was acquired in any way through the course of doing business with the merchant.

What if the scam was for a million dollars or more? A frightening thought indeed because that would be catastrophic! A very honest, prosperous and thriving business could be virtually wiped out, overnight!

Fortunately Ben was able to withstand the loss and is gallantly and successfully pursuing his dream and his business is doing well, in fact thriving.

Career Fair

ABC Processing Inc.

Dont forget to come out and join us at the Woodland Hills National Career Fair. Its coming up on Wednesday feb. 17. I will be there along with our CEO, Rick Berry, interviewing for outside sales reps and appointment setters.

Woodland Hills Career Fair - February 17 - FREE ADMISSION!

Meet face to face with dozens of employers in the Woodland Hills area...

By:National Career Fairs

BUILDING BUSINESS

Building Business

American Bank Card Processing Inc.

'The difference between a stumbling block and a stepping stone is how you use them' - Unknown

The ABC's of Payment Processing Vol. 5

Results = Increased Sales

We want to do all we can to help you and your business increase sales!

By providing our current services as well as those under development, we are very focused on driving up sales for our merchant-partners. This will drive up our sales as well.

By utilizing recently developed and developing technologies we are doing for ourselves and other small business owners what the ‘Heavy Weights’ have been doing and capitalizing on with fabulous results!

taking advantage of social media is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to driving up your business’ sales. Below are basic steps to follow to increase sales with relatively inexpensive implementations.

Resources

Resources:

• - Web-Site – an absolute ‘must have’ for any business these days. A basic site can be set up for a few hundred dollars. Contact any web developer or just contact us, we can help you put up a simple but effective web-site.

• - Payments- accept all forms of payment. From every credit card brand, including American Express, to every debit and pre-paid credit card you run into. The more payment types you can accept the more you’ll receive. Accept cash, checks and money orders, all without risk, just ask us to set it up.

• - Rewards Program a simple little gift and loyalty card program with either plastic cards and/or with e-gift coupons and e-discount coupons will increase sales and increase customer loyalty, in some cases dramatically! Just ask us how to get started.

• - Marketing- it takes effort to make something happen. Develop some kind of marketing, start with your local yellow pages and place an ad (place w/credit card logos!). Make certain your customers and potential customers can find you and your offers.

• - E-mail – Try e-mail marketing because it can work when done properly. Try a company like ‘icontact’ for more information click here ., they can help you put together an effective and professional campaign that you can set on ‘auto-pilot’ to operate automatically. We use them and we’re very satisfied…

• - Mobile Marketing- Text message your customer base with specials and stimulate and capture impulse buying! We have a program in place with a company called ‘StreetSavings’ that gets it done quickly and it’s surprisingly inexpensive and the return is incredible! Contact us for more information at info@abcprocessing.net

• - Inventory control- control your inventory and increase sales across the board. Eliminate out of stock issues with the right POS software and/or hardware. We have a computer POS system (Iventrak) with the cash register, bar code scanner, monitor w/card swiper, printer etc, the whole ball of wax, that does what e-bay and amazon both do by recommending a product others have bought who also bought that same product. It can do some other truly unbelievable things for your business... info@abcprocessing.net

• - Direct Mail- send out post cards advertising your products and/or service. We’re considering hiring someone to go door to door like you see done with flyers. We’ll let you know how it goes after we’ve done it!

The point is it takes some action to get a reaction! Get busy doing something, just give it a try and see what happens! Sometimes it’s not any one particular thing that makes the difference but rather the combination of a lot of little things when put into action that can dramatically and even exponentially increase your sales!

A story to share

Stay In Touch!

The following story serves a two fold purpose. Number one it illustrates the importance of staying in touch with your customers, and number two it highlights a very important service that we provide that can be invaluable, cash advance!

Last Friday, when it was thunder-storming here in Southern California so ferociously, I had an appointment in the San Fernando Valley. Afterwards, I figured since we hadn’t spoken for at least a year or so, I’d stop by and see Tony Dodge at ‘Dodge Bros. Automotive’ (Our deceased partner ‘Doc’ used to love him!). Sometime last year we needed to do a download on Tony’s terminal and Marc Ellen, our vice president, went over to Tony’s place twice, once at 5:30 am one day and once at 6:00 am another day, because that’s the only time Tony isn’t too busy!

Never the less Tony unceremoniously ushered Marc out both times; claiming he was just too busy and we were unable to get the download done.

This was a great opportunity for me to just get it handled! After my appointment, I drove through a torrential downpour to get over to Dodge Bros. and when I got there Tony was busy as usual hunched down at his desk flipping through papers and making notes. After shaking hands and greeting each other, I announced that I was here to get the download completed. He briefly glanced at the download instructions and said “Rick, I haven’t been with you guys for over a year! I needed some funds after American Express cut my credit line in half last year and these other guys got me $50,000 advanced on my credit card transactions!”

I quickly apologized for not having kept in touch. Because number one, I didn’t even know that he wasn’t processing with us as he never cancelled his account. And number two, we offer the very same service for less than what Tony ended up paying!

I asked Tony if I could earn his business back and he responded “come back next week when I’m not so busy and we’ll get signed up”, so I’m scheduled to drop by this week to re-sign Tony and to re-establish our relationship.

I can not stress enough the importance of communicating with your customers. Not only did we lose a sale we almost lost a merchant-partner, all because we had not maintained proper communication! Fortunately the relationship is being restored and we’re learning from our mistake.

When Tony wants more cash advanced, around summertime this year, ABC Processing will be the folks providing the value this time around.

By the way, here’s a ‘shout out’ to Tony Dodge for allowing us the opportunity to earn your business back, ‘Thanks Tony!’