How do I restrict/allow credit cards from certain countries?

How do I restrict/allow credit cards from certain countries?

One of the easiest ways to secure yourself against online fraud is to limit receiving funds from credit cards issued in the country that your online business serves.

New PayFast Dashboard

To restrict/allow credit cards from certain countries, do the following:
  1. Log in to your PayFast account.
  2. Navigate to Settings > Payment methods.
  3. Scroll down to Payment Methods and in the Credit Card box click Edit.  The Credit Card Settings will appear.
  4. From the Allow Countries drop-down list, select the countries you expect to receive payments from.
  5. Click Save.

Old PayFast Dashboard

To restrict/allow credit cards from certain countries, do the following:
  1. Log in to your PayFast account.
  2. Navigate to the Settings tab.
  3. Click edit next to credit cards.
  4. Next to Allow countries you can select the names of the countries you expect to receive payments from. 
  5. Click Update.

The most common fraudulent scenario is where fraudsters use stolen credit card information (usually cards from other countries) to purchase something (with a reasonable resale value) online. The actual cardholder can then reverse the fraudulent charges (up to six months later) on their credit card, leaving you without the goods and without the funds in your account. Limiting cards to South Africa only drastically reduces the chances of fraud being perpetrated against you. This is of particular relevance if you're selling goods with a high resale value. 

If you are only catering to a specific geographic area (for instance, you only deliver to South Africa and Botswana) you can enable a setting that will only allow credit cards issued in those countries to be processed on your PayFast account. If you think you might at some stage get a payment from someone from another country (say a visitor from the United Kingdom wants to pay you), you can enable it on your account as explained above. 

Let us know if you have a suspicious transaction, we'll gladly investigate the transaction for you.


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