Fraudulent Card Activation

Ensure Trusted Card Activation
When credit, debit, ATM and gift cards are mailed to customers, the majority of banks ask the recipient to confirm receipt with card “activation.” According to a 2009 Portland State University survey, over 75% of card activations occur on the telephone using a toll-free (800) number. The use of toll-free services ensures transmission of individuals’ ANI information to the bank, even if the consumer has enabled a Caller ID transmission-blocking feature. 

Phishing schemes, data breaches and online communication via social media sites – such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – facilitate easy sharing of personal information, once again showing that PII is not enough, and the additional physical security layer of Validated ANI is a must-have.

Use Case with TrustID:  A call is placed into a bank’s card activation system by a fraudster who has just taken a new credit card from the victim’s mailbox. The fraudster, armed with knowledge of some of the real card member’s PII, such as the billing zip code or last four digits of the SSN, would be stopped cold if the bank were using TrustID. 

TrustID would report the ANI as spoofed before the call was even answered, which would then prompt the card activation system to not activate the card, thereby preventing the fraudster access to the card’s credit line.