Fraud defense can be considered one of the most important aspects of running psychic reading, astrology, mediumship, spiritual coaching, numerology, energy healing, and metaphysical service businesses over the internet. While many spiritual practitioners focus on attracting new clients, reducing fraudulent transactions, chargebacks, account abuse, and friendly fraud can have an equally important impact on profitability and the stability of the merchant account.
Whether you offer live psychic reading, tarot consulting, astrological reports, horoscope subscriptions, mediumship sessions, Reiki healing, manifestation coaching, dream interpretation, chakra balancing, student mentoring, or digital spiritual products by implementing the right fraud prevention strategies, you will be able to protect your revenue and also will be able to maintain a very healthy relationship with your payment service provider.
It is important to know that spiritual and psychic websites face higher fraud risk. There are multiple reasons behind it. Some of them are listed below:
Top Fraud Prevention Tools for Psychic, Tarot & Astrology Websites
| Fraud Tool | Benefit |
|---|---|
| AVS | Verifies billing address |
| CVV Check | Confirms card possession |
| 3D Secure | Authenticates cardholder |
| Device Fingerprinting | Detects repeat fraudsters |
| IP & Geo Screening | Flags risky locations |
| Velocity Checks | Blocks rapid transaction attempts |
| AI Fraud Detection | Identifies suspicious behavior |
| Behavioral Analytics | Detects bots and abnormal activity |
| Chargeback Alerts | Reduces dispute losses |
| Risk-Based Authentication | Challenges high-risk transactions only |
Most of the transactions happen through a card-not-present scenario. That means these practices accept online payments over the website or their virtual terminal. The services that these practitioners render are usually in the form of a digital or intangible format, and the delivery is immediately after the purchase.
Many practitioners also offer their services through subscriptions and accept recurring payments.
These practitioners also have clients across different nations, and that is why the transactions are mostly international.
Because of all these factors, fraudsters try to use stolen credit cards to purchase the reading, while the legitimate customers sometimes initiate chargebacks even after receiving the service. They generally claim that they did not authorize the transactions or were actually dissatisfied by the outcome of the reading.
There are certain industries that are significantly affected by this kind of fraudulent transaction. These include psychic reading websites, tarot card readers, astrology platforms, horoscope submission services, numerology consultants, mediums and clairvoyants, reiki practitioners, spiritual coaches, energy healers, aura readers, palmistry services, crystal healing businesses, manifestation coaching programs, dream interpretation services, online spiritual marketplaces, mystical product services, psychic chat networks, video reading platforms, telephone psychic services, and even spiritual membership communities.
It is important for merchants from these spiritual industries to implement advanced fraud prevention tools on their websites and mobile applications. Some of the most beneficial tools include the address verification system, card verification value validation, 3D secure authentication, device fingerprinting technology, geolocation screening, velocity monitoring, AI-powered fraud detection systems, behavioral analytics, and so on.
Let us quickly understand a few of these fraud prevention tools in detail.
When a psychic website utilizes an address verification system, then once the customer submits the transaction, the system automatically compares the billing address provided by the customer with the address that is registered with the credit card issuer, which is the bank that has given the credit card to the customer. Address verification system helps in identifying stolen card usage; it also helps in reducing unauthorized transactions. Many merchants claim that by using AVS, they improve the transaction quality, and in due course of time, they also are able to lower their chargeback exposure. We recommend all the merchants automatically review or decline transactions that produce any kind of significant AVS mismatch, especially transactions that have a high value or those transactions that are for recurring subscriptions.
Card verification value, also known as CVV validation, basically requires your customers to enter the security code that is printed on the credit or debit card. This tool helps in blocking many stolen card attacks. It also helps in verifying that the card is in the position of the actual customer. CVV is also quite beneficial when it comes to reducing the automated fraud attempts, and overall, it helps in improving the authorization confidence. Psychic websites must use CVV checks on every first-time transaction whenever it is supported by the merchant acquiring bank.
3D Secure authentication basically adds an additional layer of customer authentication, and this happens during the checkout process. There are various advantages of 3D Secure authentication, and these include strong customer authentication compliance in many regions. When a merchant utilizes 3D Secure authentication, it increases the card issuer’s confidence. Many merchants have experienced lower authorization transaction disputes when they use this fraud detection tool.
Many acquiring banks and payment processors that support spiritual businesses use risk-based authentication that only challenges suspicious transactions while they allow trusted customers to complete the checkout process. without any friction.
The device fingerprint technology is an extremely beneficial tool because it actually identifies the characters of the customer’s device, browser, operating system, and network environment. It also helps in detecting the repeat fraudsters. By utilizing this tool, PSPs identify if there are multiple accounts on the same desktop. Intelligent technologies also carefully identify suspicious account creation patterns.
An IP/GEO location identifier is an intelligence tool that is used by our payment processing partners. It analyzes customer information and compares it against the transaction information. This tool gives vital indicators such as high-risk countries, proxy usage, VPN detection, location mismatch, and rapid transaction attempts from multiple regions. For example, if the billing address on the card is Canada, but the transaction is actually happening from Singapore within minutes, then this type of tool can immediately flag such transactions. If a customer uses multiple cards or there are multiple failed payment attempts, then this tool identifies such behavior.
Artificial intelligence-powered fraud detection system helps identify behavior patterns, device reputations, transaction histories, and customer purchasing habits and also checks the details through the global fraud intelligence network.
Some of the more advanced tools identify mouse movement patterns, typing behavior, navigation speed, session anomalies, or any kind of bot-like activities.
Fortunately QuadraPay’s PSP partners use most of the above-listed fraud detection tools, and this helps our merchants in processing credit card payments with complete peace of mind.