BIN Validation

UltraCart can utilize a 3rd party service to check if a credit card BIN (the first six digits) is a prepaid credit card. This system does not guarantee to block 100% of the pre-paid cards out. This is a good idea if you're doing a free trial and trying to block pre-paid cards from being used to abuse your offer. After you enable BIN validation you can either choose to block prepaid cards on a:

per item basis
per screen branding theme

There is a 5 cent charge per BIN validated.

Who needs BIN validation?

BIN validation is typically used by merchants who are marketing a free trial offer and/or using a 3rd party affiliate network. By validating the BIN and blocking prepaid/gift cards it will elimanate two potentially huge problems:

Customers using a gift cards to get the free product knowing there is no chance that they can be rebilled when they don't return it.
Affiliates using gift cards to place fraudulent sales and receive the commissions.

The math on either type of fraud is very simple. If the product costs $5 to manufacturer, $5 to ship, and then $40 of commission to the affiliate than a prepaid/gift card used to obtain the product with no chance of a rebill equates to a $45 loss for the merchant. So if a merchant loses $45 for each fraudulent transaction on their free trial, then as long as they block 1 out of 900 transaction attempts they will break even on the cost of BIN validation. Some UltraCart merchants utilizing external BIN validation have reported it blocking 10-15% of the attempts when they launched their free trial campaign.

Enabling BIN Validation

Turning on BIN Validation is easy. Just navigate to:

Main Menu → Configuration → BIN Validation

Just check the box on the page and save as shown below.

Just because you have turned on the BIN validation does not mean UltraCart will block prepaid carts. You need to either enable it on a per item or per screen branding theme basis.

Per Item Basis

To enable BIN validation on a per item basis you need to navigate to:

Main Menu → Item Management → Items → [click item id] → Other Tab

Scroll down the page until you reach Payment Method Restrictions. Check the box as shown below.

Per Screen Branding Theme Basis

To enable BIN validation on a per screen branding theme basis you need to navigate to:

Main Menu → Configuration → Screen Branding Themes → [edit] → Conversion & Tracking

Check the BIN Validation box as shown below.

Example of Message to the Customer

Here is an example of what the customer will see if they try to use a pre-paid card.