Holiday Season Fraud Prevention Checklist
Produced By Ann Davidson, VP of Risk Consulting at Allied Solutions
It’s not if fraud exposure will happen this holiday season, it’s when! That’s why your credit union should help your staff and members prepare for what fraudsters have in store this holiday season.
Our gift to you this holiday is a checklist that you should provide to your credit union staff to ensure that your credit union and credit union’s members have a safe and fraud free holiday season.
Holiday Season Fraud Prevention Checklist:
☑ Educate cardholders about the heightened risk of attacks and scams during the holiday season, such as: Phishing attacks (where the member is asked to pay the scammer money) and recruitment scams (where the member is asked to pay a bit of money up front to earn more money later on.)
☑ Recommend to staff and members that they more closely and more frequently monitor ACH items, outgoing wires, and online transaction activity on all of their cards and accounts to look out for any unauthorized activity. Inform them to pay special attention to ACH items and outgoing wires.
☑ Utilize promotional and communication tools to increase the proliferation of information to your credit union staff and members about the increased likelihood of scams and attacks during the holiday season.
☑ Flag or block any unusual out-of-state card purchases. Inform members to alert you if they are traveling over the holidays, so that they are not affected by these preventative measures.
☑ Monitor any type of card fraud to help identify a card breach. Look for a common point of compromise and report it to the fraud department at the card association (i.e. Visa or MasterCard) immediately.
☑ Ensure that your credit union is receiving Visa alerts (CAMs) or MasterCard alerts regarding compromised cards and/or regarding information about the type of card data at risk (i.e. Track 1, Track 2, etc.).
☑ Determine if you will block and reissue or monitor compromised card numbers. In cases where the full unaltered magnetic stripe has been compromised, it is strongly recommended to block and reissue the card data.
☑ Contact cardholders to let them know when they are part of the compromised breach.
☑ Share a message on your website or phone system with any updates about the breach.
☑ Utilize multiple layers of authentication when validating and sending out ACH and wire transactions both online and in-person to help prevent any unauthorized withdrawals of members’ funds.
☑ Monitor PIN change activity. The criminal may make multiple attempts to perform a PIN change in order to obtain card data.
☑ Utilize an anti-skimming device on your ATMs to help prevent skimming.
☑ Review daily dollar limits for signature, internet, and PIN transactions and offer members the option to lower their daily card limits over the holiday season.
☑ Watch for multiple payments on the same day or within days of each other on credit card accounts and do not provide availability of a payment to the credit card holder until other payments clear.
☑ Watch for increased cash disbursements (advances) being performed on non-credit union issued cards at the teller counter.
☑ Perform a review of your fraud risk tools and programs to assess their effectiveness.
☑ Continue to enhance your fraud protection strategies and your fraud management systems to help prevent card exposure.
For more information, watch the "Holiday Fraud Prevention 101" webinar recording. Ann Davidson with Allied Solutions, LLC will explain what type of risks increase during the holidays and introduce steps that you, your staff, and your members can take to help ensure you all have a safe and fraud free holiday season.
Allied Solutions is the NAFCU Services Preferred Partner for Insurance – Bond, Creditor Placed (CPI), Guaranteed Asset Protection (GAP), and Mechanical Breakdown (MBP); and rateGenius. More educational resources and contact information are available at www.nafcu.org/allied