topic Never activated PenFed debit card fraud detected in General Credit Topics

Never activated PenFed debit card fraud detected

Catbird_Seat — Tue, 30 May 2023 21:01:11 GMT

I have a never activated PenFed debit card & today I got a text from PenFed, then a phone call confirming the charge attempt. Spoke with the Fraud department, they asked me to confirm multiple charge attempts that happened today. There were for 4 attempts for $0.00, 1 attempt for $30 & 1 attempt for $109.10 from some random beauty product company I've never heard of. The card was closed & they're sending me another one. File this one under someone using a random card number generator, since this card has never been anywhere but my home office since they day I got it in the mail & has never been activated.

Re: Never activated PenFed debit card fraud detected

Spotsy — Wed, 31 May 2023 18:55:50 GMT

Sorry this happened to you, but the exact same thing happened to me a year ago. A bunch of charges for switch tv. PenFed was great about getting them reversed and a new card sent out. Since you sock drawer the debit card, I would also go to the Penfed site and 'Lock' or 'Turn Off' the debit card as an additional protection measure.

Re: Never activated PenFed debit card fraud detected

Catbird_Seat — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 00:48:04 GMT

@Spotsy wrote:
Sorry this happened to you, but the exact same thing happened to me a year ago. A bunch of charges for switch tv. PenFed was great about getting them reversed and a new card sent out. Since you sock drawer the debit card, I would also go to the Penfed site and 'Lock' or 'Turn Off' the debit card as an additional protection measure.

Great idea! I'm going to do that with all my debit cards I don't use.

Re: Never activated PenFed debit card fraud detected

northway — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 00:58:24 GMT

This is absolutely rampant right now. It's called a BIN attack. I've had it happen across 5-6 debit cards now. I'm at the point where I've locked every single card I'm not actively using. What they do is try testing a few .01c transactions to see if the card is valid and that the fraud algorithm hasn't stopped them before they go on for bigger purchases.

Just yesterday on one of my locked cards I got an alert for a .01c transaction at a pasta restaurant in Washington, a .01c transaction for a grocery delivery service in Minnesota, and then a $540 transaction at a Sally Beauty in Denton, TX. None of the transactions went through, but I've dealt with this multiple times now. Previously they were spamming Discord Nitro subscriptions after the penny tests.