According to the Banks Association of Turkey's definition, collusive transactions carried out by using POS devices, debit cards, or credit cards for purposes other than their intended use are called fictitious transactions. In short, we can call transactions used outside their intended purpose "fictitious transactions."
If we look at this topic from the merchants' perspective, do merchants that engage in fictitious transactions share common characteristics?
Yes, the following similar characteristics are commonly observed;
- Merchants established 1 year ago or less,
- The large majority being sole proprietorships,
- Frequent transaction attempts with high amounts,
- Fictitious transactions mixed in among genuine transactions,
- Use of MCC codes such as jewelers, electronics retailers, etc.,
- A high number of transactions made with similar cards,
- Merchants established more than 1 year ago that had no transactions at all beforehand but suddenly start processing high-amount, high-volume transactions, and many other similar characteristics.
Whether a merchant is using its POS device for purposes other than intended is decided by fraud teams through careful, detailed scrutiny. I believe it is extremely important for this process to be managed with great care, because telling a merchant that has no improper usage that its transactions are being treated as improper would be a very unpleasant thing to do.
