The Author
Tom Mahoney, the Founder and Director of Merchant 911, started the site in January of 2001 in response to being a victim of credit card fraud in his own on-line business. After doing some investigating, he discovered that there were major holes in processing systems because merchants weren’t being given the information they needed. He decided to combine his seven years as a police officer and investigator and 20 years as a computer network manager to help other merchants avoid the scams that victimized him.
Merchant 911 went on line in January of 2001 and has grown to over 3700 members. Mahoney volunteers his time and expertise to the group, as do other active members. Membership is restricted to on-line merchants and there is no charge to become a member. Members have access to searchable databases containing over 1/4 million fraud fighting records, two mailing lists for fraud alerts and fraud related discussions, and a forum for the discussion of any matters concerning on-line merchants. For further information, go to the merchant911 pages.
Mahoney has had numerous articles published by Search Hound, Merchant Fraud Squad, Cyber Crime Fighter Newsletter, and numerous trade e-zines. Merchant 911has been written up in the Wall Street Journal, the International Council of Shopping Centers, and a NetworkWorld article on fraud. Merchant 911 is considered to be one of the top sites of it’s kind on the Internet and is the largest of the free sites. After the 2005 breach of over 40 million credit card accounts from Card Systems Solutions, Merchant 911 was featured on the CBS Evening News, National Public Radio and on Japanese network television.
In 2005, Mahoney developed the content for “Preventing E-Commerce Chargebacks,” the premier fraud prevention course for on-line merchants. This course is available on CD or by download. Further information can be obtained at PreventChargebacks.com.
In addition to E-Commerce Merchants, Merchant 911’s members include fraud prevention executives from Visa, Apple Computer, ChaseBank, BankCard USA, PayPaland dozens of other transaction processors, acquirers, issuers, and law enforcement who all pool information geared to fraud prevention.
