Smaller Online Retailers Hit By Scammers

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ONLINE retailers are accustomed to working overtime during the holiday season. So are criminals.

The holiday season typically brings a surge in the number of fraudulent orders, and thieves seem to have shifted techniques to combat tightened security practices among bigger merchants this year. The evidence so far is anecdotal, but industry leaders say smaller online retailers, and those with strong gift-certificate sales, are being especially hard hit.

“Certainly the frauds are trying to take advantage of the very busy times, and the volume that fraud departments are trying to process,” said Tom Sullivan, chairman of the Merchant Risk Council, a nonprofit antifraud group that represents about 100 online retailers. “They’re trying to slip more transactions through.”...

full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/techno....html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin