John Mossblad is Fraud Analyst at Eurocard. His team works around the clock surveilling card transactions and staying one step ahead of fraudsters. He says that most attempts to hijack credit cards, or any other type of fraudulent behaviour, is detected and stopped immediately by their system, no matter the time of day.

– You can continue to purchase things online as usual. It goes without saying that you should be sure to protect your card details. But it really doesn’t matter what sites you shop from – even trustworthy online stores can be hacked. And if they are, the hackers will have access to all card details that have been entered in the system. But our system will detect this early on – often even before the cardholder discovers it,  says John Mossblad.

Anna was a victim of attempted card fraud

Anna uses her Eurocard for both personal and work related purchases. John Mossblad and his team received a warning from the system, that while Anna was shopping as usual in her Stockholm suburb, suddenly a purchase was made abroad. It was a very small amount, but the system warned about the irregularity.

– I received a text message from Eurocard asking me to contact them about transactions made with my card,” Anna explains.

Anna called them immediately and confirmed their suspicions. Anna was still in Sweden and had absolutely not tried to make a purchase abroad at the time.

In this case it was unauthorised transactions and someone getting hold of Annas card number. The card was immediately closed and a new card, with a new card number, was sent to Anna. The purchase that had set of the system warning, was denied and the card number the fraudster was holding on to became completely useless.

The customer is never unprotected

– I don’t know how they got hold of my details. I had only been shopping on completely trustworthy online stores and bought plane tickets and such. But it felt really good that they couldn’t get away with it. Even though I never would have approved of the transactions once I had received the invoice, says Anna.

Anna has probably used her card online in a store which later on was subject to hacking. But when it comes to this kind of incident the customer is never without protection.

– It is of course impossible for the customer to avoid this incident. How could she know that these particular online stores would be hacked? Since there has been no negligence from the customer, we will of course make sure that she doesn’t have to pay for these unauthorised purchases. And this goes for everyone regardless if they are our private or corporate customers, says John Mossblad.

New security barrier online for increased control

But if the fraudsters are inventive and quick to find new ways – John and his team are even faster. "We work hard to not only protect our customers from existing methods of card fraud, but also to predict the fraudsters’ next move and the next method. We are ahead of them!” Among other things, a new security barrier has been introduced by Eurocard, which means that some online stores require you to actively open your card in order to shop.

– Preferably you keep the card closed for online shopping as a default setting – and then unlock it when you know you are about to make an online purchase. And if you register your mobile number on the Eurocard website, you can open your card for online shopping during one hour, simply by sending a text message.

Pay with your credit cards

An important tip that John and his colleagues want to share, is that it is – in general – much better to shop online with a credit card than with a card connected to your bank account. This way you don’t need to worry about anyone getting hold of the card number connected directly to your salary.

– But to summarise, I would like to say that it is just as safe to shop online, as shopping with your card in a physical store! And knowing that, thanks to this new security barrier, we all take a responsibility not to finance large-scale criminal activities, feels like an important and good thing.