What is Hand-Key Sale

Hand-key sale is a mode of transaction when the sale is made with hand-typing the full credit card number and expiration date.

Common Seen Hand-Key Sale

• Take-out only restaurant

• Phone order/ Pre-pay order by phone

• Online order/ Order on website

• The merchant re-key tips

Risks of Hand-key Sale

• Hand-key sale is the least secure way to run a payment, if chargeback occurs, it is very likely the merchant could successfully challenge back the sale, and needs to pay for the chargeback fees. (Reference: Chargeback）

• Hand-key sale comes with a higher credit card processing fees.

• Hand-key sale can decrease the merchant's reputation.

• Hand-key sale always increase the risk for fraudulence as charging a counterfeit credit card or a stolen card.

How to Reduce the Risk of Hand-key Sale

• Reduce the number of hand-key sale. According to the card brand's new guideline, Retail/Restaurant/Massage and other business are required to process with read chip or EMV cards.

• If a customer's card has no chip or the chip is damaged, inform the customer to use another card or pay by cash.

• For take-out businesses, portable terminal like Clover go, A920, CardPointe Reader are great tool to avoid hand-key sales.

Updated on: 11/08/2023