Credit Card Fraud

Credit card fraud is a growing epidemic. However, contrary to what most people think, the consumer is not at great risk due to credit card fraud. By federal law, you are limited to no more than $50 in responsibility for fraudulent credit card charges and most credit card companies lower that to $0.

The people who are at most risk are the small business owners on the internet who barely make a living as it is. They are fully responsible for any charge backs due to fraudulent credit card charges. It doesn't take many such fraudulent transactions to virtually wipe out the small business owner.

Coin & bullion dealers are prime targets for credit card fraud. Fraudulent use of credit cards results in losses for us and results in higher prices for the consumer. As a small business, we cannot afford to absorb the cost of credit card fraud and as such, we make stringent use of our merchant service's credit card protection system.

We use an Address Verification Service (AVS) provided by our processor. The Address Verification Service (AVS) is a credit card fraud prevention tool that compares the address information you submit with the information on file at the bank. AVS is currently available only for U.S. issued credit cards and why we do not except international issued numbers.

If the AVS check indicates a mismatch between the address information you entered and the information on file at the bank we will suspect credit card fraud, and will void the transaction.

This means, that unless you are already an established customer of ours with a proven order history, we cannot ship orders to any address other than that of the billing address of the card holder. NO EXCEPTIONS!

In certain cases were we suspect possible credit card fraud, we may ask that you fax us a copy of the front and back of your credit card as well as proof of your billing address before we ship your order. These measures are to protect us and our customers!

Providing us with a copy of the front and back of your credit card is no different from handing your credit card to a merchant in a local store. The exact information is available to the merchant when he/she handles your credit card and swipes it through the credit card machine. In addition, he/she can verify your address and other information by examining other forms of id at the time of sale.

Internet merchants do not have that luxury. It only takes a few fraudulent transactions to wipe out a coin & bullion merchant since our profit margins are so low. As such, we cannot risk loss due to credit card fraud. Our policies help ensure that credit card fraud does not take place. Since anyone can purchase a product online with a stolen credit card and have it shipped to anywhere in the world, we have been forced to institute this policy. The practice of requiring this information is common among internet businesses.

If you cannot provide us with the requested information, then we cannot process your order. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you but the risk of credit card fraud is to great.

Failure to comply with such a request may result in immediate notification of your local authorities and possible criminal prosecution. Don't even think about attempting credit card fraud here! We will use the full extent of the law to capture and prosecute anyone who attempts to do so.