Tell me in a few words what you do in your
day to day work at the Credit Union
Ruben: Well, as it relates to cards, during the day I answer emails, and talk to members over the phone to assuage their worries. My everyday work consists also of the maintenance of credit cards: requesting new cards, changing limits, redeeming Visa points for Platinum members if needed, and I also apply the transactions from the credit cards onto the members’ accounts as part of the daily maintenance; and of course, I handle credit card fraud. |
| Jose Pedro Ravel (L) and Ruben Pereyra (R) |
Pedro: On the debit card side it’s just about the same, we handle the maintenance, card requests, card shipping, and sometimes even the production of new cards because now we have the Card At Once System, which allows us to create cards here in person so that the member can walk out with it.
But regardless of all that, when we work here, we don’t come to the office with the intention of just working on card maintenance. It doesn’t work that way. We offer such a large range of services that it isn’t really about the cards; we are really here to help the member with whatever he or she needs. Because our purpose here is to offer members the best service possible, with cards or anything else.
Does your work include investigating
suspicious activity?
Pedro: Of course, we handle the whole fraud process, from the moment the member files the complaint to the management of the case with Coop, our transaction processor; we also do the follow-up and reimbursement of funds. And we file the claim with the insurance company.We also monitor odd transactions. We have, for instance, a report that shows us when a member has attempted to make a cash withdrawal in Indonesia, when the member is clearly not there. Of course Falcon (the debit and credit card fraud monitoring and prevention system) declines such transaction, as preventive measure; but from here we follow up because it tells us that the card is now compromised, and that we need to contact the member and cancel the card. It’s rare that the member detects a problem before the Falcon system, since it’s a very advanced process that is running 24 hours.
Ruben: No, in my case no. Since credit cards belong to Visa, the Falcon system manages fraud cases. Once a case has been resolved by Visa then yes, I do the maintenance side of it here. My follow-up consists of requesting a replacement card, and contacting the member with specific instructions on how to file the claim and get the money back, if it applies. However, even though Falcon handles the fraud case, in 99.9% of the cases members contact us first, not Visa. Because of the nature of how we do business, our members are used to asking us first, always.
(Laughing) It’s just the way it works here, they trust us and I always find it funny that, for example, if a member needs to send a wire transfer, she’ll call us for the instructions. But if she wants to receive a wire transfer, she will call us, too. It’s just the way we are, we help.
But things have changed quite a bit in my work these past years. A few years ago a lot of my work consisted in helping people coming to find out the balances, their minimum payments, card limits, or to make payments at the teller line. With online access via Ezcard now, that has stopped. People make their payments and check their accounts online. Retirees still come and see me, but more than anything I handle maintenance, particularly as now we have a whole lot more members who travel and travel constantly. That requires a lot of maintenance.
What type of fraud is the one you see most lately?
Ruben: cloning, without a doubt. They hack the card information in cases that are known as “plastic present” meaning that the member still has his or her card but a clone has been made and gets used elsewhere.In the last month we have had a very large case of fraud, affecting a large amount of cards all in the same day, used in the same place, for the same amount. We had more instances of fraud in that one day then in the previous two years. But we suffered no losses. It’s under investigation, and there is reason to believe that it’s a backlash of the Target data breach almost a year ago.
Pedro: in my case, we see all sorts of fraud. But as of late the most common one is the cloning of cards at the ATMs in Brazil. It has been so severe that we have been forced to take measures and lower the withdrawal and purchase amounts for cards in Brazil, for the members’ own security.
It’s an extremely complex fraud in which the whole facade of the ATM machine has a new facade placed on top of it. On top of the monitor, keyboard, everything. It’s undetectable and it steals the information of absolutely every single card used on it. We have had a lot of fraud cases involving these machines.
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