Ant-Fraud Alliance Announced

Two of the Internet's top credit card fraud fighting sites have joined forces. The resulting expanded free services may well keep some E-commerce sites afloat.

U.S based Merchant 911 and the Belgian group of Merchants Against
Fraud have entered into an alliance that will enable them to increase
the quality of the free service to their members.

Merchant 911 has been active since January of 2001and has over 1500
merchant members. the Belgian group, started in January of 2003, is
smaller but on track with where Merchant 911 was in it's first 9
months. "We both screen merchants heavily before they can become an
active member," said Merchants Against Fraud's founder Lieven
Gekiere.

Merchant 911's Director, Tom Mahoney and Gekiere have shared
anti-fraud information since MAF's creation in January of 2003.
"This is a global economy and the Internet has no borders, so the
alliance is a good mix," said Mahoney. According to both founders,
sharing information is the biggest defense merchants have against
fraud in the Internet.

Both groups were started as a result of their founders being scammed
in their Internet businesses.

The web sites provide tools and information to help eCommerce
merchants protect themselves against fraud. Because of the
differences in U.S. and European laws, there are fundamental
differences in the approach to the problem, but the end result is the
same. According to Mahoney, "If one merchant is scammed and gives
the details to the rest of the members, that's close to 2000
merchants that are not going to become victims."

Merchant 911 can be found at
http://www.merchant911.org and the MAF's
site is http://www.merchantsagainstfraud.com