SEPT. 17-OCT. 14, 2015 • THE CSRA’S MONTHLY BUSINESS MAGAZINE
Technology takes to the sky in CSRA
UAV technology offers a range of commercial, emergency applications
Justin Sellers directs one of his Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) near his home in North Augusta. UAVs are a growing trend in technology for their ability to take aerial photos and for their emergency response potential. Photo by Gary Kauffman
Technology will help stop credit card fraud By Gary Kauffman You’ll soon have credit cards that will look like a chip off the old block, but they will change how consumers and businesses will use them. No longer will a swipe of the card be enough. The new cards will be embedded with electronic chips that will be inserted into a card reader. The chip will generate its own random identification number for that transaction while it is in the machine. Joe Howard of Worldpay, one of the world’s largest credit card processors, said the changes are coming because of the increased access to information. Howard was in Augusta recently to speak at a seminar hosted by the Small Business Development Center.
The people with the biggest targets on their backs are small businesses “When credit cards started the only people who were suspected of stealing were the employees because they were the only point of access,” he said. “Now the point of access is anywhere.” Cards with magnetic stripes are easy to duplicate, he said, while it is virtually See CARD FRAUD, page 2
By Gary Kauffman Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…a UAV? Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) will be more frequent sights in the skies in the coming years, and one of the pioneers in the Augusta area is Justin Sellers of Sellers Imaging. The UAVs are often called drones, although Sellers said the term drone is more commonly used for military, or weaponized, UAVs. His UAVs are armed only with cameras. The UAVs look like a high-tech remote controlled toy and they are fun to fly. But they are anything but toys. Sellers already uses them for agriculture, real estate and emergency services, and sees applications in the future in land surveying and health care. Although Sellers Imaging has been in business for only three months, Sellers is hardly a novice in the field. He worked for six years as an instructor for the Department of Defense, teaching various branches of the military and other government agencies how to fly UAVs. “I was deployed to Afghanistan five times,” he said. “My wife and I decided we were tired of me leaving and getting shot at.” He runs the business from his home in North Augusta, although it is only the second business there. See UAV TECHNOLOGY, page 4
D-Day: Businesses will become liable for credit card fraud Oct. 1 October 1 is D-Day in the credit card world, but if all goes well in your business, it should never affect you. On that day, a new law goes into effect that shifts the responsibility of credit card fraud from the credit card company to the business that took the fraudulent card. If you don’t take any bad credit cards you don’t have to worry about it, of course. If you do, it could be quite expensive. Joe Howard of Worldpay, one of the world’s largest credit card processors, said that the average fine is $60,000 for taking a fraudulent card. That’s bad enough, but your business could also be prohibited from accepting credit cards during the investigation into the fraud, which usually takes a minimum of six months. The good news is that new technology is
coming that will help protect you and your customers from stolen or fake credit cards. It just won’t arrive by Oct. 1. On the way are credit and debit cards, called EMV cards, that are embedded with chips that will make them harder to duplicate and will make transactions more secure (see Technology will help stop credit card fraud). Howard said that the new law only covers transactions that take place with the card present. Credit card payments taken over the phone or internet do not fall under the new regulations. One way businesses can help protect themselves is to become compliant with Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards. See D-DAY, page 2