The importance of digital payments for travel agencies

Today I would like to explain to all my travel agent colleagues why digital payments can no longer be postponed in our sector, as in other economic sectors , and how payment circuits can help us manage sales and complaints.

I'll start with an alarming fact: even today I am aware of colleagues who have been defrauded with transactions that take place over the phone or via email with cloned credit cards , all in violation of European regulations (PSD2 and PCI DSS regarding the security of credit card transactions ), of common sense and with the risk of even getting a criminal complaint (some unwary colleague inserts the card received directly on the supplier's website, thus becoming co-responsible in the attempted fraud). I ask these colleagues if they would also accept Monopoly notes as payment, because trusting a stranger who gives us a credit card over the phone is practically equivalent to this.

I'll give you a second alarming fact : let's say the case of a legitimate transaction, therefore a neither cloned nor stolen credit card of one of your regular customers. Well: when purchasing the trip or the service, the customer did not fully understand that there were penalties to pay and in any case, on the phone, when he gave you the card, he did not sign to accept these conditions. I inform you that if your dear customer ignores the transaction and demands a refund of the services, in 72% of cases he wins the dispute and sees the amount re-credited to the detriment of the merchant who will instead be deducted from the collection .

What this means: that in the event that you know your customer very well and he pays you for the services provided in the ways described above (MOTO telephone transaction or sending an email with the coordinates) he always has the possibility of denying the charge by saying that the sales conditions were unclear or that he hadn't fully understood that the service entailed penalties and for a thousand other reasons and, as I repeat, in 72% of cases, the customer is right and not the merchant.

Here, after so much bad news, is some good news: today there is the possibility of having secure and certified transactions without the possibility of being contested by the customer.

Follow me, I'll tell you the rest in the next episode.

Richard.