What Does 'Verified by Visa' Mean?

While Visa card network offers its customers extensive fraud protection and coverage, Verified by Visa offers even more. When making a purchase over the internet, it adds an extra security measure at the point in which you enter your credit card details. It helps to prevent any unauthorized or fraudulent use of your card with the use of using an additional password to confirm your identity.

Visa has many different layers of security measures in place to ensure that its card holders can feel confident any time they use their credit card. Verified by Visa additionally helps to detect, prevent and resolve any possible security problems before they become major issues.

How Does Verified by Visa Work and Can I Use it?

Verified Visa is designed to be used with any visa card regardless of issuer or whether it is a credit or debit card. A card holder simply has to activate the card in order for it to work, after which, every time the card is used at an online store that participates a "Verified by Visa" screen will automatically appear. All you have to do is enter your secure, unique password and then click submit. Your transaction has been carried out in one of the safest secure ways possible. Certain issuers of cards also offer card holders the option to activate their cards for the first time while purchasing an item, by taking them typically, to an online form to confirm their identity.

Card holders should remember, however, that once a card has been activated it will not be possible for it to be used in an online transaction without the personal password.

Verified by Visa can be used from any computer with an internet connection as there is no need to install any software or programs. It can also be used on multiple cards within the same account, although some issuers will require each card holder on the visa account to activate the card and make their own personal password before using Verified by Visa.

Advantages for Card Holders

The most obvious advantage of Verified by Visa for card holders is the fact that there is less likelihood of their card being used online by an unauthorized person. The chances of a card or its details being copied is wiped out because the additional secure personal Verified by Visa password is not stored or written on the card. While a hacker may be able to obtain other card details such as account numbers, it is impossible to obtain the password associated with Verified by Visa.

Disadvantages for Card Holders

While there do not seem to be any direct disadvantages to using Verifies by Visa, there may be certain "inconveniences." The system itself uses a pop-up window to prompt card holders when it's time for them to enter their password for the issuer to authenticate. Some card holders are wary about whether the pop-up is actually from the issuer, or if it could be a different website attempting to obtain the card details.

There has been some criticism for the system Verified by Visa uses, due to the difficulty for some card holders to tell the difference between an authorized Verified by Visa pop-up and an illegal phishing site.

There have also been some instances where a genuine Verified by Visa pop-up has been mistaken for a phishing scam and there are recommendations that an inline frame rather than a pop-up window be used. There may be difficulties implementing this however, because the majority of web browsers are not able to provide an easy way to check security certificates regarding the contents of an inline frame.