[thelist] how secure to store credit cards

[Steve Cook]

> 
> This is going to be for orders of products that need to be shipped, 
> and to my understanding it's illegal to charge a card for a purchase 
> before the order has shipped. So my task is to find a way to keep the 
> card number until the order has shipped.

This is one of the areas that a specialist in credit card transactions can
help. Through their systems which are interconnected with the bank and
credit card companies they can "reserve" a sum on the card for a period of
time. At our company for instance we resell event tickets but don't always
know whether a particular event is sold out or not or which price classes
are available. We looked into a system which would allow us to reserve a
base price on the customers credit card which corresponds to the price we
expect the tickets to be. This reservation confirms for us that the card is
valid and has funds available. We then check availability and confirm the
transaction and price with out client. If the price has changed the first
transaction is cancelled and a new one created. Otherwise we complete the
transaction and the funds are transferred to us.

AFAIK there is no way to do this process without being connected to the
credit card clearing systems directly and this is one of the "extras" one
pays for by using a 3rd party service.

Hope this helps.

.steve

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